Microbrewed Adventures - Charles Papazian [51]
My microbrewed adventures have taken me to the far corners of the world. Clearly it is the people who are involved with beer that are most important for me—the culture in which they brew, why they brew, how they dance, what they eat, whom they play with. The beer always becomes that much more special. That is really what makes my adventures so interesting to me.
THE FIRST ADVENTURE I want to share with you is about two individuals I met in 1981. David and Louise Bruce weren’t just starting a brewpub in London; they were living their lives in a creative, passionate manner. Through their trials, tribulations, humor and extraordinary passion, they transformed the world of beer.
The Brewpub that Started a World Revolution
London—David and Louise Bruce
I BELIEVE that David and Louise Bruce, more than any other individuals, were responsible for igniting the worldwide brewpub revolution. In 1979 they opened the Goose and Firkin in London, the first brewery/pub to be opened in all of twentieth-century England. From the years 1880 through 1970, the number of active brewery pub licenses in England dropped from 12,000 to five. David Bruce, who had been involved in production or as a brewer with Courage, Theakston’s and Bass Charington, learned the basis of his serendipitously adopted trade as a brewpub owner and brewer.
By 1982, he had opened several other “Firkin” brewpubs in London. The Fox and Firkin, Goose and Firkin, Frog and Firkin and Fleece and Firkin were the first of dozens of Firkin pubs. They were unique in that they were fun, lively pubs, with a sense of humor unparalleled in the British beer business. Ales were brewed on premise and served directly to the customer.
The Bruces’ was not an overnight success. The couple had no personal wealth to invest in a new and promising enterprise, and the investors and brewers they approached thought they were absolutely daft. David had been unemployed for eight months before coming up with the idea of renovating a condemned pub and turning it into a brewery pub. Both he and Louise invested barrels of sweat equity and their own time, while skillfully working the British brewing industry’s money-for-beer sales system to help finance their enterprise.
David had a passion for business and entrepreneurial projects. He embraced beer as a lively means to connect with enjoyable work and enjoyable people. His entrepreneurial spirit and brewer’s skills qualify him as one of England’s original microbrewers. David’s sense of humor should not go un-mentioned, as evidenced by this anecdote: “One thing we did was a brew called ‘Knee Trembler.’ The grist for five [British] barrels at 1.075 (18.2 B) original gravity was 330 pounds of pale malt, 110 pounds of crystal malt, 7 pounds of black malt and 11 pounds of hops. Knee Trembler at the time was the strongest draft beer mashed in the country, and someone said after trying it, ‘My word, if you ever feel the bottom falling out of your life, drink the stuff and the world will fall out of your bottom.’ Apart from that, it did cause quite a bit of problem with the police because people actually couldn’t quite get to their cars. After it had been on sale a couple of weeks we had to assure the police that we would only sell it in half pints. Of course, everybody started ordering it in half pints.” It surprises me that David has not yet been knighted for his achievements.
David Bruce and the beginning of the Firkin Empire
David Bruce and the beginning of the Firkin Empire. Courtesy David Bruce.
It was all well and good in provincial merry old London, but news of their success did not electrify the world until David and Louise attended the 1982 American Homebrewers Association annual conference in Boulder, Colorado, at my