We're really pleased to announce that our first event as Hop Hideout and our first event in 2014, the crew at Northern Monk Brew Co have kindly said yes to hosting a Meet the Brewer night with us.

The last 12 months have been a perfect storm for this small newly formed Bradford brewery. Developing from home-brewing routes, commercially brewing in June 2013 and launching at the ace Sparrow bier cafe in July to a host of applause from peers.

Our Meet the Brewer will be hosted at Electric Candlelight Cafe (next door to Hop Hideout) 7-9pm (doors 6.30pm) on Saturday 25th Jan.

NMBCo brewers will be hosting, taking you through a selection of beers in the session and sharing their story.

I think we may head to The Broadfield after!

Here's a little taster from NMBCo:

"Progressive, bold, British Craft Beer. From the North, with Love."

We take our influences and ingredients from the best of the World of Beer and brew it in Gods own country. The history, heritage and tradition of a quintessentially British drink, the progressive approach to technique, ingredients and dispense of brewers in the US and the commitment to excellence demonstrated by monastic brewers for thousands of years.

STRANNIK

"In a word, superb.
Strannik is a big satisfying Imperial Stout.
It pours as black as pitch with a cappuccino head and its smell is cocoa powder, coffee grounds and sour damsons.
The finish is long and dry, sticky and bitter and very more-ish.
Two beers in and Northern Monk are looking frighteningly good."

CAMRGB

"Beer of the Week
Strannik Imperial Stout
So new that few of the drinkers at Leeds International Beer Festival will ever have come across it before, Northern Monk is typical of a crop of confident emergent brewers who have dispensed with the need to produce a standard bitter or a session ale, and have dived straight in at the mad, bad and dangerous end of the market.
Black as death, strong as wine, rich as treacle, Strannik is their take on an Imperial Stout, a style made famous by Empress Catherine the Great of Russia.

At 9% ABV, fiercely strong Strannik is characteristic of the style, now revived by many brewers, notably Masham’s Black Sheep, whose hard-to-find Imperial Russian is one of the best examples out there.
Strannik makes all the right moves – the initial sweetness of treacle giving way to the bitterness of coffee, dark chocolate, woodsmoke, and a long, throat-soothing beautiful aftertaste. Fabulous."

Yorkshire Evening Post