UBREW’s first birthday

They say that a week is a long time in politics, well a year is a hell of a time period for a brewery— and it’s fair to say that we’ve both aged and learnt a hell of a lot in the last year or so (certainly since this picture was taken at Mother Kellys).

‘But we’re not REALLY opening tomorrow are we?’

A year ago almost to this day, one of our earstwhile staff put this statement ‘out there’ as the team sought to put more than the final, finishing touches on our new Bermondsey home.

For our fraught PR guru Andy, who had assembled a selection of the world’s press to come along to UBREW the very next day, the answer was very much ‘Yes’!

Well the build process may not quite have been in the above state of affairs — but we did lack a fully working stairs.

The team had been working round the clock during the previous few weeks to get the bar and fermentation room finished — leaving it right up to the 11pm on the Sunday night to finish it!

But all was alright on the night as we launched UBREW to the press and made Matt and Wilf sit around some very pretty and very shiny things.

The first of many parties

Two week’s later, we held our first UBREW party to celebrate our opening with our members and friends — it’s fair to say it was a lively gathering! But it was so cool meeting our new members get excited about the space and itching to get their first brew on!

We followed this up during the summer with UBREWfest and ended the year with a pretty kickass Christmas party — we even managed a rather scary Halloween pumpkin brew somewhere in between. We’ve had a US tap attack, Oktoberfest as well as helping to collaborate with some cool brands like Brooklyn Brewery or launch Hop and Barley’s latest offering last week.

We brought Brooklyn to Bermondsey

You too can now get involved in either Ultimate Craft Beer Quiz on Friday 11th March or come to one of our unique beer tasting sessions with our prototype ‘Alpha beers’ on Saturday 12th March.

UBREW by numbers

In the meantime, we thought that we’d share with you some of our favourite stats from the past year:

We’ve welcomed 155 membership groups — and love every single one of them. Without our 1800 strong community of people who brew, drink and work with us, we would be nothing.

UBREW has sold over 7500 draft beers sold & 6500 bottles — and we salute every one of you — including the launch of our own dozen #Alphabeers

Try our amazingly craft range of prototype beers: http://bit.ly/UBREWtasting

We’re proud to say that around 50% of our members are 1st time brewers — meaning that we now around 200 brand new, regular brewers — together with over 300 people who have attended our brew course.

We also have 15 commercial members eagerly awaiting the installation of our new 1000 litre kits — and almost all of them have successfully gone through the 1 and only HM Customs and Revenues.

Recently, we’ve revamped our taproom — now with 10 taps and our 2nd UBREW site in London is close to confirmation.

for being part of our craft beer revolution.

Matt and Wilf