Unit 3, Low Mill Business Park
Ulverston
LA12 9EE
tel: 01229 581387
info@stringersbeer.co.uk @stringersbeer on twitter
We're proud to be a small, independent, award-winning brewer of lovely beer. Or, if you like, a Craft Brewer. We live in the Furness area in Cumbria (or N. Lancs if you'd rather)
All our beers are based on choice Maris Otter malt, whole flower hops (it's worth it!), and beautiful Lakeland water (of course!).
Unconditionally Guaranteed Honest, Non-Evil, and Hype-Free! Not only Greener, Better!
25/03/2013
In response to the very welcome abandonment of the duty escalator, some of our prices will be changing.
We're well aware that some of our customers have been finding trading conditions difficult, and so didn't start the year off with a "cost of living" increase.
We've now decided to cancel our planned increase on our bottled products and will absorb all the increased costs of production ourselves. So, no new wellies for Becky.
Most of our cask prices will be going down a little! Yay! Well done everyone who campaigned for an end to the escalator!
In addition to the beers that we make all year round, we generally have available a couple of alternatives. At the moment we're also selling:
We produce two ranges of bottled beers: A set which we have bottled for us by Cumbrian Contract Bottling in Cockermouth, and a more experimental family of bottle-conditioned beers which we package in-house.
Here's the bottled version of our Best Bitter. Copper-coloured with a sweet, soft aroma and a solid bitter finish.
We use a blend of Pale, Munich, Crystal and wheat malt, with a touch of Chocolate malt for colour. And then come the hops: Challenger, Northern Brewer and Bobek.
After maturing in the brewery, it's simply filtered and bottled for your drinking pleasure.
Alc. 4.2% vol. 500ml
Our IPA is a robust and flavourful beer, with an emphasis on drinkability, in the classic style. There are citric, spicy, fruity and lightly resinous notes, then bitter-sweet marmalade and a definite cleansing bitterness.
A hefty dose of Amarillo hop is deployed over a base of Pale and Crystal malts.
After a lengthy period of careful maturation, it's simply filtered and bottled for your delectation.
Alc. 5.5% vol. 500ml
When our "No. 2" stout was declared Champion Stout of Cumbria, we knew we had to do a bottled version. And here it is!
It's a little stronger than the cask beer, a feat we achieved by putting even more of the good stuff: Pale, Black, Chocolate and Smoked malts - Roast and Flaked barley - Northern Brewer hops.
Once it leaves the fermenting vessel it passes a restful time maturing in the brewery. Only then do we let it go for bottling.
Alc. 4.5% vol. 500ml
Small-batch, hand-finished, bottle-conditioned beers.
"Furness Abbey" alc. 7% vol. What would the monks at Furness Abbey be brewing nowadays? Something like this? A belgo-influenced strong ale? With hints of spice? Why not?
"Damson" alc. 6% vol. Fruit beers are sweet aren't they? Not this one. Refermented with the wild flora from the raw damsons, left to sit for months, this is noticeably sharp and dry. Sold out for this year, but another (small) batch is in the works.
"Mutiny" alc. 9.3% vol. It's a strong stout. Winey, and wafting dark fruit at you. And drinkable. But sip it.
"Delta" alc. 6.5% vol. It's a strong pale ale, but not an IPA. There's a definite Low Countries thing going on (hence the name).
We're a small family-run outfit. Serious about giving our customers the service they need, but small enough so that we can concentrate on quality rather than quantity.
We've had a number of people ask us about the renewably powered thing. "Have you got a windmill then?" Well, no, we haven't, but by working with our supplier "Good Energy", we can assure our customers that all the power used in our brewery is 100% renewable electricity, from wind, wave, small scale hydro and solar power. This will have generated zero grams of CO2 and zero grams of high-level radio-active waste.
"And what about your van? Does that run on veggie oil?" As it happens, no. But to cover the last year we've offset 6.4 tonnes of CO2 (about 13000 miles-worth) through support of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) clean energy projects in developing countries that have generated CER credits. CDM projects are fully verified to Kyoto / United Nations (UN) standards via an independent Designated Operating Entity. These CER offsets are retired / cancelled through the UK Environmental Agency's carbon registry.
Our Environmental Policy
We recognise our responsibility to manage the environmental impacts of our activities, products and services. We have assessed our activities and identified that our significant environmental aspects/impacts include water and electricity usage and waste production.
In order to promote good environmental practices, our Policy with regard to the environment is as follows:-
1. To identify the significant environmental impacts of our activities.
2. To develop suitable objectives, targets and management programmes, applying appropriate operational procedures to minimise our significant environmental impacts.
3. To comply with relevant legislation, regulation and other requirements relating to our significant environmental impacts.
4. To prevent pollution, minimise our inputs of utilities and resources and the outputs of emissions to the atmosphere, effluents to waters/sewers and wastes to disposal facilities; endeavouring to re-use, recover or recycle materials where practicable.
5. To ensure that environmental responsibilities are defined, communicated and understood at all levels within our organisation and provide appropriate training where needed.
6. To communicate, co-operate and respond to the views of interested parties, customers and the general public, on environmental issues, where this is practicable and likely to result in an overall improved environmental performance.
7. To strive for continual improvement in overall environmental performance.
Rebecca Stringer and Jonathan Kyme 01/12/2010
Grains to pigs
"Spent" grains waiting to go off to the piggies. Lucky piggies.
After we've extracted most of the starch and sugars, there's still
some goodness left - protein and roughage... The pigs love it.
Pleased to be a member of the Society of Independent Brewers.
Our brewery is powered by Good Energy.
Please use this contact form to send us a message.
Or, use the regular post:
Unit 3, Low Mill Business Park
Ulverston
LA12 9EE
You can phone us,
Email, or tweet us
@stringersbeer on twitter
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Cumbria Life 2013 Gold Champion Beer
"Mutiny" -
Cumbria Life 2013 Gold Beer
"Furness Abbey" -
Cumbria Life 2013 Gold Beer
"Dry Stout" -
Cumbria Life 2013 Gold Beer
"Delta V" -
CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain Cumbria Beer of the Year 2012
Gold RAIB "Furness Abbey" -
CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain Cumbria Beer of the Year 2012
Silver RAIB "Mutiny" -
CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain Cumbria Beer of the Year 2012
Silver Stouts "No. 2 Stout" -
CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain Cumbria Beer of the Year 2012
Bronze Golden Ale "Yellow Lorry" -
CBEN Environmental award
Gold Standard Achieved! -
SIBA North 2012
Bronze in Bottled Bitters >5% "Delta V" -
International Beer Challenge 2012
Gold for Design and Packaging "Mutiny" -
International Beer Challenge 2012
Bronze for Design and Packaging "Dry Stout" -
International Beer Challenge 2012
Bronze for "Dry Stout" in its class -
Lancashire Cup 2012 - Supreme Champion Beer of Lancashire!
"The North Will Rise Again" -
Lancashire Cup 2012 - Champion Premium
"The North Will Rise Again" -
Lancashire Cup 2012 - Champion Porters & Stouts
"No. 2 Stout" -
-
SIBA North 2011 - Bottled Bitters (over 5%) -
Silver
"IPA" -
SIBA North 2011 - Bottled
Porters, Milds, Old Ales & Stouts - Silver
"Mutiny" -
Lancashire Cup 2011 - Runner-up -Strong.
"Victoria" -
-
Macclesfield BF
2010 - 1st in Strong Ale category.
"Paint it Black"This was our "Black IPA". Everybody & his dog seem to be doing them nowadays, so we've given it a rest. -
Champion Beer of Cumbria 2009 - Champion
Stout.
"No.2 Stout" - More to come...
- Beer Emporium, Sandbach
- Booths
- Glenridding Mini Market
- Open All Hours, Keswick
- Red Pepper, Cartmel
- Ship in a Bottle, Whitechapel, Liverpool
- Source Deli, Ormskirk
- Taste @ Rheged
Of course, this isn't a complete list of all the places we deliver beer to. We're always working to make our beer easier to get. You can help - by asking your friendly neighbourhood licensee to get some in!
In Ulverston you can frequently find our beers at such excellent establishments as:
To the west you might want to try:
To the north:
In the heart of the lakes:
To the east:
Local Beer Festivals:
- Boot Beer Festival Thursday 14th June - Sunday 17th June 2012
- Ulverston Beer Festival Thursday 1st - Saturday 3rd September 2011
- The Broughton Festival of Beer Friday 7th - Sunday 9th October 2011
Trade customers are able to get our beer direct from the brewery - just give us a call. We make regular deliveries in Cumbria and North Lancs.
Further afield? Our cask beers are available from these wholesalers:
25/03/2013
In response to the very welcome abandonment of the duty escalator, some of our prices will be changing.
We're well aware that some of our customers have been finding trading conditions difficult, and so didn't start the year off with a "cost of living" increase.
We've now decided to cancel our planned increase on our bottled products and will absorb all the increased costs of production ourselves. So, no new wellies for Becky.
Most of our cask prices will be going down a little! Yay! Well done everyone who campaigned for an end to the escalator!
10/01/2013
Mutiny has won another major medal for Stringers, this time the Taste Cumbria Champion Gold Award. Golds were also awarded to Stringers for their Furness Abbey, Dry Stout and Delta V
40 golds went to producers in Cumbria as part of the 2013 Cumbria Life Food & Drink Awards. About 200 products, across seven categories (meat, dairy, bread, desserts, condiments, beer and miscellaneous) were judged by a panel in November, with the beer category offering nine gold awards, four of which went to Stringers.
Mutiny was described by the judges as “very special – a world class beer that Cumbria should be proud of”.
4/12/2012
The beer must get through!
When a transport hiccup upset the delivery of a consignment of Stringers award-winning beers, the brewers swung into action. The selection of bottled beers, intended for a Brussels reception celebrating the beers of England's North-West, were hurriedly packed into suitcases and rushed to the Belgian capital.
«Fortunately, we'd planned to attend the event, as it's a great opportunity to spread the word about how great our local industry is and how heavily we're hit by taxation, but we'd been planning to travel light!», laughed Becky Stringer, «The hardest part of the trip was running from Euston to St Pancras, dragging our beer-filled cases. We made it onto Eurostar with seconds to spare.»
Amidst a selection of beers from North-West brewers large and small, Stringers were pleased to be showing off their products, particularly Furness Abbey, which was recently declared Cumbria's Champion Real Ale in a Bottle. Becky explained, «It's a beer which features some Belgian ingredients, alongside British malts and hops, and it's broadly in a Belgian style, so it was fun to see it at the headquarters of the Brewers of Europe.»
17/11/2012
Gold RAIB "Furness Abbey"
Silver RAIB "Mutiny"
Silver Stouts "No. 2 Stout"
Silver Strong Bitters "Victoria IPA"
Bronze Golden Ale "Yellow Lorry"
2/11/2012
Gold Standard Achieved!
25/10/2012
Bronze in Bottled Bitters >5% "Delta V"
4/9/2012
Gold for Design and Packaging "Mutiny"
Bronze for Design and Packaging "Dry Stout"
Bronze for "Dry Stout" in its class
Yay!
1/6/2012
After a tasting by respected beer judges and selected beer fans, our new bottled beer "Delta V" has won a regional listing with Sainsbury's.
"Delta V" is a 6.5% bright gold beer, featuring six careful hop additions for a tasty, but tasteful take on a pale ale.
This year, the competition has two distinct strands, a national competition, and the regional comp. - which we decided to limit ourselves to.
"Delta V" will be on the shelves in selected northern Sainsbury's stores from August.
04/03/2012
We went to Lancaster last night with a big bag to pick up our Lancashire Cup awards for:
No. 2 Stout - Champion Stouts and Porters
The North (will rise again) - Champion Premium Ale
And the overall winner [drum roll]The North (will rise again) - Supreme Champion Beer of Lancashire
for which we got a great big silver cup.More info here: http://lancasterbeerfest.org/
We're very pleased to be able to confirm that our first load of beer is on the way to Booths. The proud family-owned business serves quality foods, much produced locally, from their community-based network of modern foodstores across the North West.
Three lovely beers from Stringers will be on the shelves starting in February.
The Brewers Wholesale will have a couple of our cask beers on their February list. Our "Best Bitter", and the light, zesty "Plan B" are just about ready to hit the road.
Get your orders in!
Three lucky winners will receive one of our AWESOME posters. Designed by our Head Brewer / Drayman / Bottle washer (me) and carefully printed on lovely 200gsm paper, one of these A2 beauties is sure to brighten up your home or business.
See here
Get your entry in before the end of January 2012.
Suitable for vegans?
This doodad is intended to be a guide for our customers, and indicates that we use no animal products in the beers we label this way.
What's in the beer.
Most of our beers are brewed using nothing except malt, hops, yeast, water, and (sometimes) sugar. There's some unmalted barley in the stout, and we've been known to throw carefully infuse some lovely black treacle into some of our irregular beers. Our yeast is non-GM, and as far as we know, our suppliers haven't figured out a way of getting animal products into the hops and malt. Even the sugar we use is free from animal products, non-GM, and would be suitable for vegan, vegetarian, Kosher and Halaal diets. Although, obviously, since our beers are alcoholic beverages, you might want to check with your local zealots before ruining your chances of paradise by drinking some of our delicious frothy ale.
We do have some flaked maize in the malt store, but we haven't used it in anything yet. If we do, we'll tell you.
Since all our cask output is "real ale" it will contain live yeast, which can cause a visible haze in beer and may contribute interesting tastes and aromas in the finished product.
Animal products in beer.
Many pale beers will have been processed using fish derived "isinglass" finings, to produce a "clear" product by promoting a rapid and stable settlement of yeast. Brewers typically add isinglass as the beer is transferred to cask, and while pretty much all of this will remain in the cask as sediment, it does mean that beers fined this way cannot be enjoyed by vegetarians / vegans. Brewers may use isinglass in their dark beers.
It's not just beer - wine producers might use any, or all, of: isinglass, gelatin, egg albumen, modified casein (from milk), chitin (derived from the shells of crabs or lobsters) or ox blood.
Some brewers manage to avoid the use of isinglass by relying on a highly flocculent yeast or by sending beer out with rather low levels of residual yeast. We've found that neither of these approaches will give us beer that reliably conditions in cask and suits normal cellar operations. Personally, I don't mind hazy beer as long as it's clean, and I find that small amounts of suspended yeast help, rather than spoil, the taste of beer. However, we've found it pretty near impossible to sell unfined pale beers, so we do normally use isinglass in them.*
In filtered, bottled beers, finings are used to "extend the filter run". In practice this means reduced consumption of filter materials, and / or reduced beer losses. Losses for unfined beers can be as much as 10%, so there are significant extra costs involved in cutting out the finings.
We're currently investigating the use of inorganic finings in the production of our filtered beers, with a view to removing the piscine element.
Not needed in dark beer.
On the other hand, our dark beers work pretty well without finings, so we don't, as a rule, put any in, making them suitable for everyone, including vegetarians and vegans. Yay!
Any utensils or containers that may have been in contact with isinglass will, as a matter of course, be cleaned thoroughly after such use, and before being used for anything else.
If you have a specific query about any of our beers, please get in touch and we'll do our best to answer to your satisfaction.
Gluten Free?
All our beers are made with Barley Malt (and in some cases wheat malt and unmalted barley). However, some of our beers (e.g. "Plan B") have very low (or even undetectable) levels of Gluten, such that we've been advised by Trading Standards that labelling them "Gluten Free" is acceptable (in the UK that's less than 20ppm).
We're not Medical Doctors (or even nutritionists), neither are we experts on Coeliac Disease. We're just brewers. So we don't presume to give you health advice on this matter, or any other health issue related to your beer intake. That's up to you.
If you're concerned that consuming trace amounts of grain protein could make you unwell you might want to avoid the consumption of our beers. If, on the other hand, you're happy to drink beer that conforms with UK labelling requirements, we're confident that ours will be enjoyable.
Stringers first ever competition giveaway!
This competition is now closed.
The winners are gazing in awe on their posters now. Don't you wish you'd entered?
So, where do we stand on keg beer?
We're big fans of well-done cask conditioned beer. But we can see why good beer in keg will be a good choice for some of our customers.
Can you buy Stringers lovely beer in keg? Of course you can, and welcome. Currently we're only kegging in small quantities and to order only, but please get in touch with your requirements.