Pete Brown, founding father of London’s Forest Highway Brewing Co., was on trip in Tampa, Florida, when he received a message from Forrest Rhoades.
Forrest Rhoades needed to order a Forest Highway–branded beanie, however the brewery’s web site provided no choice to ship merchandise internationally, from the U.Okay. to the U.S. Brown checked in his bag. He had a beanie. He additionally had a automotive, and determined that the fuel cash can be well worth the story he’d get to inform on the opposite aspect. “We drove him a hat, dude! That’s customer support!” Forrest Rhodes was in San Diego.
That story isn’t associated to this story, nevertheless it would possibly show you how to perceive the form of particular person Pete Brown is.
When, in 2019, Brown noticed an on-line public sale for a brewhouse—a four-vessel 50–beer barrel (50bbl) system that included six fermenters, brite beer tanks, water tanks, a gristmill and extra—beforehand owned by California’s beloved Russian River Brewing Co., he instantly messaged Russian River’s co-founder Vinnie Cilurzo, asking what it might take to purchase the package. It was an impetuous act of romance, the possibility to personal a treasured brewhouse that was confirmed to make distinctive beer. It didn’t matter to Brown that he didn’t at present have the funds to purchase the brewhouse, nor did he have wherever to accommodate it in London. And he hadn’t even thought of how he would possibly get the gear to the U.Okay.
Should you’re keen to drive 2,500 miles to hand-deliver a hat, you don’t are likely to search for causes not to do one thing.
Brown, a Boston native, based Forest Highway in London in 2015. After just a few years of working at Camden City Brewery, an bold then-independent brewery now owned by AB InBev, Brown determined to start out his personal brewery, named after the road he lived on.
From the start, Brown had a imaginative and prescient for his dream brewery. He didn’t wish to be restricted by a too-small brewhouse—Camden City had a small package, which required them to brew 24 hours a day to maintain up with demand. Brown doodled what he needed on a web page in his pocket book: a four-vessel 50-hectoliter (42bbl) brewhouse with six fermenters. In that very same pocket book, he wrote the recipe for what would change into his first beer, Work IPA, impressed by foundational American iterations like Maine Beer Co.’s Lunch and Odell’s IPA.
“As passionate a brewer as I used to be,” says Brown, “I couldn’t discover anyone to provide me 1.5 million kilos,” or $1.9 million, his estimate for a way a lot that dream brewery would value. Like many upstart brewers, Brown had his beer contract-brewed and packaged at a number brewery as a substitute of paying to construct his personal web site. As gross sales grew, Brown leased a railway arch in London Fields, which grew to become a taproom the place he offered Work, his vivid and bitter flagship West Coast–model IPA with malt depth and large aroma of grapefruity hops, and an all-English lager referred to as Posh, which grew to become his bestselling beer. Enterprise was good, however Brown missed brewing beer himself.
In 2019, Brown began in search of a location to construct his personal brewery in London. He employed James Garstang, an previous good friend from Camden City, who joined as head brewer. They spoke to brewery producers round Europe and got here near leasing a number of websites, however couldn’t discover the best spot. Disheartened, they settled on an interim plan: Purchase a small, 5bbl secondhand brewery and set up it of their taproom.
It was Garstang who discovered the itemizing for Russian River’s package, which was on the market as a result of Russian River had not too long ago constructed a brand-new brewery in Windsor, California. It was nearly precisely the brewery that Brown had daydream-doodled in his pocket book 4 years earlier, however 10 instances greater and 10 instances costlier than they have been in search of. Garstang despatched the net itemizing to Brown: “LOL, let’s put this within the taproom!”
4 days later, Brown was in Santa Rosa.
“It was an impetuous act of romance, the possibility to personal a treasured brewhouse that was confirmed to make distinctive beer. It didn’t matter to Brown that he didn’t at present have the funds to purchase the brewhouse, nor did he have wherever to accommodate it in London.”
As Cilurzo walked him by way of the premises, Brown remembers considering, “It could be our personal fault if we couldn’t kick magical beer out of this factor. It’s like having Jimi Hendrix’s guitar; if we play it proper, it’ll do the best factor.”
It wasn’t simply that the package was pristine and confirmed to make world-class beer. Even with all the prices and human hours spent on getting the gear to London, it might nonetheless be considerably cheaper––maybe $1 million much less––to purchase it secondhand and ship it internationally than to purchase the identical set-up model new. Brown made a proposal to take the package out of the public sale. It was accepted.
Brown enlisted the assistance of his father, who flew in from Boston, to disassemble the brewhouse and put together it for its lengthy sea voyage. “My dad has picked me up from all types of locations the place I’ve been in hassle,” says Brown. “He’s picked me up from detention, he’s picked me up from jail. However once we rolled as much as that web site and I opened that shutter, I’ve by no means seen him with that look on his face. He was like, you’ve actually completed it this time.”
Between the 2 of them, they needed to take aside all the brewery, and do all of it in order that it might be potential to reassemble it. The brewing vessels are 13 toes in diameter; the most important fermenters are 26 toes tall; they’re related by miles of metal pipes; there have been tens of 1000’s of items. For 4 days, they began at 6 a.m. and completed at 10 p.m. They took as many pictures and movies as potential.
The vessels have been strapped to 14 flatbed vehicles and all the things else was packed into two 40-foot containers, then pushed all the way down to the port in Oakland. The ship was on account of arrive in London within the first week of March 2020.
Brown obsessively tracked the ship’s progress. When he’d visited Russian River’s Windsor facility just a few months earlier, he’d seen a photograph on the wall of a container ship carrying the brand new brewery because it handed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge on its journey from Germany. When he noticed the ship getting near the Panama Canal, he and his father flew to Panama Metropolis and snapped an image of it going by way of, “to maintain the custom going.”
The ship containing Brown’s new brewhouse arrived in London on schedule. He’d spent the previous three months in search of a location for his brewery, and had lastly discovered a vacant previous Victorian tea warehouse in Bermondsey, in southeast London. However the nation was put right into a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown earlier than he may signal the lease. He had no alternative however to pay to retailer it within the Southampton docks for 9 months.
In December 2020, a convoy of vehicles lastly delivered the brewhouse, and Brown’s meticulous disassembly––which he’d completed a full yr earlier––paid off as he put all of it again collectively in its new residence. On September 9, 2021, nearly two years since Brown first went over to Santa Rosa, he and Garstang brewed the primary batch by way of their new brewery.
“‘My dad has picked me up from all types of locations the place I’ve been in hassle,’ says Brown. ‘He’s picked me up from detention, he’s picked me up from jail. However once we rolled as much as that web site and I opened that shutter, I’ve by no means seen him with that look on his face. He was like, you’ve actually completed it this time.’ ”
In 2010, as a younger beer nerd, I went on my first beer journey to North America. I may’ve gone wherever within the States, however in my thoughts there was just one vacation spot, and one beer that I had to drink.
I booked flights from London to San Francisco, touchdown within the late afternoon, and it was darkish and raining as I discovered my technique to a bar referred to as Toronado. I nonetheless clearly bear in mind the fun of claiming the phrases: “Pint of Pliny the Elder, please.” It was probably the most thrilling beer factor I’d completed to this point.
Pliny the Elder is Russian River’s signature beer, and the very best IPA I’d ever tasted. For years I’d been studying about this beer, for weeks I’d been planning this journey and for the final 11 hours this pint was all I may take into consideration. For folks like me––and Brown and Garstang and plenty of others––who got here to craft beer round 2010, Pliny the Elder was the final word American IPA. Later that week, I traveled north and stayed an evening in Santa Rosa, simply so I may drink in Russian River’s brewpub.
Once I heard that Brown had purchased this package, it appeared too inconceivable, even unattainable, {that a} brewer in my residence metropolis now had a brewhouse that after belonged to Russian River. However I’d identified Brown lengthy sufficient to consider him when one thing like this occurs.
Should you step into the Bermondsey tea warehouse taproom at present, you’ll see flags and skateboards on the partitions, stickers slapped on each floor. There’s the massive picture of the container ship passing by way of the Panama Canal, surrounded by many different pictures of vital brewery landmarks. Macrobrewery faucet handles are showcased on wood plaques like deer heads in a looking lodge—every one a trophy faucet that Forest Highway has taken and changed with its personal beer.
Brown is romantic about craft beer. His beer schooling got here from studying the tales of Fritz Maytag at Anchor, Ken Grossman at Sierra Nevada and Sam Calagione at Dogfish Head. Subsequent to these origin tales have been typically pictures of the brewers with their first kits.
Now Brown appears to be like out over his brewery, one of many largest impartial breweries in London. “That is our first package, and which means one thing to any brewer,” he says.
He factors out the place totally different elements got here from: Most is from Russian River. The brite beer tanks and gristmill are from Dogfish Head, the kegging line is from Brauerei Schloss Eggenberg in Austria. He factors to a vacant space on the again wall of the warehouse. He’s simply purchased two 300bbl fermenters from one other well-known California brewer, Bear Republic. “It’s our Frankenstein,” Brown says of his brewery. “It represents all the things we’re.” He pauses as he appears to be like round, then he laughs out loud: “To have this brewery right here is fucking loopy, although,” he says. “But it surely’s as much as us now. If we fuck it, that’s our fault.”
It is very important Brown that he not capitalize on another person’s legacy, and Forest Highway doesn’t make beer much like Russian River’s. Forest Highway’s major beer is Posh, a 4.1 % ABV all-English lager, and the main target is on brewing massive volumes of beer to be offered on draft in pubs throughout the U.Okay. (The brewery revamped 1.5 million pints in 2023.) The brewhouse proved it may make the very best IPAs for the American market; now it’s making the quintessential trendy lager for the British market. They received Hendrix’s guitar, however they aren’t enjoying cowl songs—they’re enjoying their very own hits.
