Sadler's Brewing Co. - Peaky Blinder Black IPA, Awards, Sponsorships and Sharing the Love!
Sadler's Brewing Co. picked up a whopping SEVEN awards at The World Beer Awards this year, including United Kingdom Winner for its flagship brew in the Peaky Blinder range of beers: Peaky Blinder Black IPA. Brewed with five different malts matched up with five different hop varieties, this Black IPA has a mix of sweet, rich berry fruit, finished off with a dry, lingering bitterness of roasted coffee. It’s been really in demand, due to its great taste.
We had a chance to catch up with Chris Sadler, Managing Director of Sadler's Brewing Co. to find out what makes Peaky Blinder Black IPA so special and the history behind the name. We have to admit, we didn’t quite expect the entrance that Chris was going to make; rocking up in a beautiful their bright purple Morgan 4/4 convertible branded to match their Peaky Blinder Lager … #badass! Once we’d grabbed a beer and sat down, Chris told me where it all began for one of Sadler’s latest and greatest brewing additions.
“The first question we asked ourselves [when thinking up the recipe] was how do we get a dark beer to really sell? So we put a modern twist on it, making it a lot more heavily hopped.” And with the initial idea in the works, this unique brew also needed to stand out as a Sadler’s product, “Peaky Blinder Black IPA really suited for a few reasons; My family were brewers back in 1861, right through into the 1920s, so we were very much there at the time of the Peaky Blinder gang. My grandfather spoke to me about it when I was younger, about knowing these gangster-style characters hanging out in our bars. So from the Sadler’s side, we were aware of them. But, coincidentally, my family then married into the Kimber family and my great, great uncle is the real "Billy" Kimber [head of the Birmingham Boys gang]. My Grandmother, Barbara Kimber, who is now in her late 80s was married to Walter Kimber, so all of our lives growing up we dreamt of my Grandmother being a Peaky Blinder. So it was the perfect name.” With Chris there, we couldn’t help but ask about the recent car sponsorships and Birmingham City FC and West Brom getting involved too,
“The Birmingham City, West Brom and car sponsorships are exciting. It’s great that we’ve now linked up with Halewood Wines & Spirits, another family-owned business. We can have a bit more fun, while still having the freedom of being an independent at the same time. We've got what every brewer dreams of, which is good beer distribution, support, and to get the equipment that we really need to do it. It also helps with consistency, so we're quite unique in what we're doing. We operate locally as a family business, but can just do a bit more, which is hopefully good for beer.”
And Sadler’s has plenty more planned, with its Harborne bar refurb well and truly underway, “We're trying to do a lot more collaborative projects with other brewers, which is why we’ve got our new Brewers Project going on and will be naming our Harborne bar after this. We’ll be having a lot more guest ales and kegs in, and hopefully get involved in more collaboration work with other brewers. We're trying to be more social as a brewery as we've got this great facility that hopefully can help other brewers. If I’m honest, we've been a bit blinkered and have not opened our eyes to working with other brewers.”
“It’s great fun to come out and talk about all of the Peaky Blinder products and all of the sponsorships, that's great, but I almost have to ignore that and just enjoy the beer that we’re brewing, personally this is what I find exciting!”With plenty of awards, colabs and fun sponsorships, Sadler’s is definitely making the most of a good thing and inviting everyone to join in! So watch this space and we’d recommend getting a taste of Sadler’s success with Peaky Blinder Black IPA.
