Meet the Brewer: Orbit Beers
Founded by Robert Middleton in mid-2014, South London brewers Orbit specialize in producing innovative versions of classic European beer styles. With our permission, they’ve hijacked DeskBeers this week, with most of our customers getting an Orbit craft beer box (or keg, for the KegHop customers). Here’s our in-depth interview with Paul Spraget (Head Brewer) and Robbie Sykes (Commercial Manager)…
DESKBEERS: How did you guys get interested in brewing?
PAUL: I’ve been obsessed with good beer since August 2010, when I first drank a Kernel beer (Black IPA II) and had my mind blown. I’ve been brewing professionally for almost 5 years. I was working in a pub and decided I wanted to make beer rather than pour it. I started out at Weird Beard Brew Co as a part time Brewery Assistant, scrubbing things clean and digging out the mash-tun whilst in my underwear. I had barely any experience with homebrewing — the first batch of beer I brewed at home was supposed to be a Goose Island IPA clone, but ended up tasting of cat-piss so it all went down the drain!
ROBBIE: Personally I worked in the pub side of the beer industry, cellaring cask ale was a big passion. After several years I moved over to Orbit in 2014 as brewing assistant, though now I deal with commercial and logistics, and everything else that needs doing in a small business.
DB: Tell us how Orbit came about, and the thinking behind its style and look.
R: Our style and look is obviously heavily influenced by music. The current branding was born from many long chats with the guys at ByVolume, an Italian-led design agency. Over a period of weeks (or months!), we had many conversations back and forth to get to what we wanted to achieve. I think it does it justice: it’s stylish and recalls old record labels whilst subtly referencing the revolutions of vinyl playing. Everything from bottle cap to bottle shape was considered and I think it all holds together beautifully. Thanks in no small part to ByVolume!
As for the brewery, our story began when our Founder, Robert, set off on a journey in his VW campervan, Brian. His mission was clear: to discover beer in the land of whisky! This expedition took him (and Brian) to every single brewery in his native Scotland, from the northernmost island in Shetland to the Outer Hebrides, the Scottish Borders and even his home town of Dundee. The result was a book called The Tea Leaf Paradox and a burning desire to create Orbit Beers.
Robert’s earliest memory is his fascination with vinyl records and in particular the distinctive, varying designs of the spindle adaptors that lived in the centre of his sisters’ 7″ singles, stacked above the turntable, ready to play. Around this time his new friends knew him as ‘Orbit’, a result of childhood difficulties pronouncing ‘Robert’. At the inception of the brewery, it seemed fitting to bring to life that early nickname and his first iconic image to form our logo and our name, Orbit Beers.
We moved into our double railway arch in Walworth, South London in early 2014, brewing our first batch there on July 1st that year. Since then, all subsequent beers have been brewed and packaged on our site, which has now expanded to include the arch next door.
DB: Paul, you’ve recently become Head Brewer at Orbit. Previously you’ve worked at Mad Hatter and Fourpure. What attracted you to Orbit?
P: One thread that connects all the breweries I’ve worked at is that they are all independently owned and run. You’ll never see me toiling away for Big Beer!
Mad Hatter and Fourpure were like two opposite sides of the same brewing coin. The experience, skills, and knowledge I picked up from working in both breweries were a world apart: Mad Hatter was a chaotic and experimental roller-coaster ride through brewing Wonderland, whilst Fourpure was all about quality, efficiency, consistency, & technical accuracy in brewing. Now I’m Head Brewer at Orbit, I hope to merge these two approaches, refining our core range through quality processes and consistent reiteration whilst experimenting and getting creative with our one-off White Label Series beers.
DB: This week, with our Orbit ‘takeover’, we’re making your Neu Altbier our featured beer. Please can you tell us more about Neu, and also about Altbier as a style? Not so many UK breweries seem to be doing Altbier right now, so a good number of our customers will be trying it for the first time.
R: Altbier is a style from Düsseldorf, close to the Rhine in Germany. It’s a top fermented, light amber to light brown lager. Bitterness levels vary, as does the amount of caramel sweetness from the malt. However, generally speaking it is a well-rounded style. Ours has a big hazelnut nose, a light body and pleasant herbal hop character with only very restrained caramel or toffee flavours from the malt. The bitterness level is firm but not aggressive and it finishes lovely and dry.
The term Altbier means ‘old beer’: Altbier is made in the ‘old style’, that is before bottom fermentation techniques took over across Germany (and most of the world). In Düsseldorf the beer is served in 25cl measures in thin glasses (slightly squatter than the long elegant glasses of neighbouring Cologne where they drink Kölsch). Table service is the norm and the beer is delivered by ‘Köbes’ — waiters (usually older men) in blue aprons. Traditionally, the beer is served direct from a wooden barrel, brought up from the cellar and placed on a low ‘bar’ to be cracked and served from. The Altstadt (‘old town’) of Düsseldorf has half a dozen or so brew pubs where this tradition lives on; Schumacher and Uerige are probably the most famous.
DB: Neu is named after the Krautrock band of that name. Can you tell us a couple of your favourite Krautrock records, and recommend any other good music you’re listening to at the moment?
P: I don’t actually listen to that much Krautrock (even though it’s one of my partner Alex’s favourite music genres), so I’m gonna cheat and tell you my favourite ‘Krautrock-inspired’ song, which is ‘French Disko’ by Stereolab. My current favourite record is A Crow Looked At Me by Mount Eerie from 2017, even though I can only listen to halfway through before breaking down in uncontrollable sobbing fits.
R: There’s a Can track called ‘Aspectacle’ which I love, though I actually discovered it through a Q-Tip sample (which is probably closer to what I listen to a lot of the time). I’ve just got an LP of Brand New Heavies remixes which is excellent!
DB: What’s going on outside of Orbit’s core range? I’m thinking of your White Label and Digger’s series of beers in particular.
P: The White Label Series is where I plan to cut loose and explore some esoteric beer styles & ingredients, merging traditional history and modern creativity. I’m hoping to play around with some forgotten European beer styles such as the German Kottbusser, the Dutch Joppenbier, and the Finnish Sahti. Watch this space!
R: The Digger’s Series is slightly different again. These are beers a long time in the making. Either barrel aged, or simply aged in the bottle until they’re ready to be enjoyed. They are rarities, no fixed number will be released, some we might sneak out at our tap room in SE17, others you might find in beer specialist off licenses and the like, but as a rule they are hard to find, so get digging!
DB: Finally, do you have any upcoming projects you’d like to tell DeskBeers customers about?
R: Indeed, our new taproom will open at the end of March. We’ve been working very hard to get it ready and are very excited. We’ll have 6 beers on tap and a cracking sound system to play vinyl! It’s in the arch next door to the brewery where it all started. Come down, and if you live locally you can join our Digger’s Club…
Thanks again to Paul and Robbie for taking the time to answer our questions, and to the whole Orbit team for turning out great beer day in, day out.
Like the sound of Orbit and wanna try their beers? We’re offering 20% off your first Regular Delivery with the code ORBIT20. The code will be valid till we’ve sold out of these beers (about a week from the time of publishing) so get cracking.
