Keystone Brewery News

News from the brewery

January February Spring 2007 Summer 2007 Winter 2007

Christmas/January 2008

‘Cheer Up’ – the days are getting longer
Keystone is excited to announce the launch of the new Keystone Beer –‘Cheer Up’, to mark the return of the sun after mid-winter. We all need a pick me up at the darkest part of the year and this beer is the perfect antidote to those winter blues. At 4.6 % ‘Cheer Up’ will warm the cockles of your heart without being too strong. A tawny beer with rich darker malts combined with a balance of brewing hops and a special addition of Fuggles “dry hopped” into the cask. ‘Cheer Up’ will be available from the Shortest day 22nd December in pubs throughout the region along with Keystone’s regular five and our very successful Keystone Porter.

If you’d like to arrange a brewery tour for your pub or group then we can organise a great evening of beer tasting with snacks and a bit of brewery insight too. Beer design courses are also available.

Keystone beers are available in three sizes of casks (pin, firkin and kilderkin) both sedimented and bright, as well as in various polypin sizes. Large One, Gold Spice and Keystone Porter are also available in bottles.

Winter 2007

Keystone Porter – Now Available
Keystone is pleased to announce the launch of the new Keystone Porter ready for the winter months. The smoky dark beer was launched at the very successful Salisbury Fine Food Fair at the end of September and has been well received by pubs throughout Wiltshire, Dorset and beyond.

We are hosting an increasing number of events in the brewery, not just brewery tours for pubs and groups but also stag doo’s and birthday parties too. Contact us if you’d like to visit the brewery on an informal basis or organise something more exiting. Beer design courses also available.

Our barley has been drilled and is now growing well in the fileds around the brewery. We’ll keep you updated on crop growth.

To find our beer locally, go to the Compasses in Chicksgrove, he has been known to have three on at once – thanks Alan!

Find yourself on holiday this Christmas in Helsinki then look out for Keystone beer, a consignment of our beers have recently gone to Finland.

Summer 2007

We are pleased to announce that malting barley will be grown in the fields around the brewery, ensuring even lower ‘Beer Miles’. Velcourt, in conjunction with Fonthill Estates have agreed to grow 'Marris Otter' malting barley that will be malted at Warminster Maltings. This will mean that the UK’s largest agricultural business is providing malt for one of Wiltshire’s smallest Breweries. A real tale of ‘Little and Large’!
read our press release

In July we celebrated the first year of the Keystone Brewery with guests sampling our range of beers and food. The evening was enjoyed by all, and included music provided Heelstone - who many will remember from our launch party. Thanks to all those who attended and those who helped make the evening such a success!

We appeared in a feature in the July edition of The Spectator, with an interesting article about Bertie's future role in the brewery! Read on...

As we enter our second year of brewing, we are delighted to announce that our beers will once again be available in bottles. A small automated bottling plant has recently arrived, meaning our beer will be available fresh from the brewery and will further reduce our ‘Beer Miles’. Our best selling bitter 'Large One' and award winning ginger beer 'Gold Spice' will be available in bottles.

Keystone Brewery launched its Summer beer – Wiltshire Pale Ale (WPA) at 3.8%. A traditional pale ale inspired by the India Pale Ale without the high alcohol volume (no sea to cross in Wiltshire!). Challenger, Boadicea and Golding hops dominate, giving floral and toffee aroma leading to a crisp, dry taste with grapefruit flavours to the fore. The after-taste is clean and bitter with subtle malt. As fresh as the Wiltshire Downs!

Spring 2007

Our monthly newsletter has now gone quarterly, but the web site will continue to be updated with any events etc. which will be of interest to our customers.

Our brewery featured in a recent article by Ned Halley, "Its Fun to Brew" in the West Country Life supplement of the Western Daily Press. (June 2nd). See Our Beers for Ned's review of our award winning Gold Spice, Cornerstone and Large One brews.

Large One gets a mention in an article in featured in The Telegraph, about The Forester pub in Donhead St Andrew.

In a consumer survey we were voted second in a survey of stalls at the Shaftesbury Local Food Market. Thanks for all that took part in the survey and voted for us!

Our Gold Award recently featured in an article in the Salisbury Journal, "The Toast is Keystone". (May)

GOLD AWARD: Keystone Brewery has won a gold award at the Society of Independent Brewers, South West Beer Competition. Under the category of specialty beers the gold was awarded by beer industry members under blind tasting conditions to our Gold Spice 4%abv ginger beer.

Keystone also appears in the Food and Drink section of The Telegraph (21st April, 2007) as well as being mentioned in an article in The Guardian.

We are now stocking our Keystone rugby and polo shirts in child sizes - adult sizes are also still available. Contact us for further details.

February

There are over 30 pubs in the area who stock Keystone beer regularly. If you want information on where to find our beer locally to you, please either call or email us. In all, well over 100 pubs are stocking Keystone Beer and we hope to double this over the next six months.

Purple Love

Keystone Brewery is supporting Purple Love Week with a tasting of our bottled Large One at Deliz in Tisbury on Valentines Day. Purple Love Week aims to support local independent food retailers, just the sort of places you can find our lovely bottled beer. For more information take a look at www.purpleplaces.co.uk

January 2007

Sales of Bottled ‘Large One’ have been amazing and we’ve nearly sold all 100 cases, but don’t panic we're off to bottle some more this month.

Further cask purchases put our total cask population at 450 meaning Keystone beer will be available to more pubs and more regions. The new Gold Spice went so well over the Christmas period that we are planning to keep it in stock into the New Year, so we’re now brewing five regular beers:

Bedrock Bitter (3.6% abv)
Gold Standard (4% abv)
Gold Spice (4%abv)
Large One (4.2% abv)
Cornerstone(4.8% abv)

We will be at the Salisbury Winterfest Beer Festival 2nd and 3rd February, see the Salisbury Camra website for further details.

This year we are going to set up a rainwater harvesting system in line with our local and sustainable ethos.

We hope to get our neighbouring farmer to produce barley for harvest 2007 that can be malted in Warminster, truly low food miles.

Feedback – as a new brewery we are very keen to hear your views, please contact us with your comments.