LAUNCH DATE: Friday 8th March everywhere except Saturday 9th March for Kill The Cat in London.
So… a few weeks ago our Welsh juice-bomb brewer friends Loka Polly got in touch to ask if we could help them get their Augment Range launch around to some awesome bars in our patch of the UK. What else were we going to say but “hell yeah!” And the timing worked well to start talking about full coldchain in connection with this launch. We were on the cusp of getting our refrigerated Iveco on the road – after 9 months of planning. This being the first step on our road to full coldchain.
Introducing Rosa, Spur, and Patternist – the first releases from our new Augment Range.
Launching 08/03/2019 nationwide. pic.twitter.com/r4DupMnry1
— LOKA POLLY (@lokapollybeer) March 1, 2019
The Augment Range beers are a perfect example of the type of beer most in need of a developing UK coldchain distribution standard – massively dry hopped and dependent on punchy hop volatiles. These hop aromas and flavours are unstable and degrade rapidly in ambient conditions – and beer oxidative changes dull all those juicy notes. Time and heat are the enemies of beer – as beer quality god Charlie Bamforth is well known for sciencing like a boss: “any beer will change and deteriorate with time. There are a number of big enemies, but the major ones are oxygen and heat”. (Get his book “Freshness” if you are interested in beer quality, and this podcast interview with Bamforth is always worth a listen – “one of the most significant things that that anybody can do to maximise the shelf-life of their product is to store it cold” @ 15:50.)
Here’s a brief background of Augment in Loka Polly’s own words:
“Last year whilst working with some of our brewing heroes, we had a spark of inspiration. What if we amplified our beers; bringing the hop bills up to the max; drawing direct inspiration from those same brewing heroes?
We’ve been working meticulously behind the scenes since then and are now proud to add the Augment range to our brewing portfolio. Introducing Rosa, Spur, and Patternist – the first of this new permanent range.”
Hops! Hops! Hops! MORE HOPS! 🙂
Here’s a map of all the awesome venues we’re supplying Augment Range beers to – these beers were collected with our refrigerated Iveco on Friday and shipped direct to our coldstore. (The yellow pins are Loka Polly in Wales and Jolly Good Beer in East Anglia. Note that Loka Polly are also supplying venues in their area and north direct.) Note that the Kill the Cat event in London is SATURDAY 9th March.
We’re guaranteeing coldchain to the coldchain-ready blue snowflakes – Hopmaster General, Rushden; Kilder Bar, Birmingham; The Stoneworks, Peterborough – these venues have the sort of 4°C direct-draw coldstorage installs that Jolly Good Beer promotes as the best sort of beer storage and dispense at retail (the Hopmaster General and KIlder Bar are actually Jolly Good Beer installs).
Brewery @ 4°C
⇒ Transport @ 4°C
⇒ Warehouse @ 4°C
⇒ Transport @ 4°C
⇒ Bar @ 4°C
⇒ Consumer (intah mah mouth!!)
And we’re another mile down the road to full coldchain… in 2019 the plan is to move all our vehicles to refrigeration and be ready to connect up all venues for coldchain delivery and connect up as many breweries as possible for coldchain collection – and grow the number of breweries and retailers we can offer full coldchain quality to!