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This weekend will see two new Hawkshead beers launched at our Spring Beer Fest.

HERE SHE GOSE 4.5%

A beautifully soft peach gose.

Designed and brewed by the Hawkshead Ladies to celebrate International Women’s Day and to raise the profile of women in the brewing industry. Almost half of our team at the Brewery are women and we are very proud of that!

We are donating a percentage of the profit from this beer to Springfield Domestic Abuse Support in South Lakeland.

IMPERIAL FLUMP KING 10%

A gooey sumptuous Imperial Marshmallow Stout.

This version of our session IPA sees us using all NEW Slovenian hops which have come out of the Slovenian hop institute breeding programme. Head Brewer Matt had the chance to sample some of the new varieties on his visit to Slovenia during last year’s harvest, and hand pick some of the best to experiment with.

HOPS: DRAGON, WOLF, FOX AND KOLIBRI
MALTS: MARIS OTTER, OATS, CARAPILS & MUNICH

This week Matt our head brewer is in America, his first stop has been in San Diego visiting and brewing with Modern Times and Pizza Port Brewing Company. Whilst with Modern Times they brewed a NZ hopped bitter on their pilot kit and then brewed this year’s Rainbow Project beer, which is inspired by the colour yellow and will be barrel aged before release. Next up after meeting at their brewery tap, Pizza Port invited Matt to collab with them, designing a Paloma inspired beer which they brewed early on Wednesday morning before flying out to Miami.

Matt is attending J.Wakefield’s invitational Wake Fest in Miami on 17th February, where he’ll be pouring Chuckleberry Sour, Session IPA and Chocolate Northern Imperial Stout.

AWARDS

This year we won a record five gold, two silver and two bronze awards at the brewers’ society North West beer awards. These included awards for overall champion of both bottled beers and cask beers – the first time in England both awards have been won by the same brewery. Windermere Pale won gold and was judged overall champion cask beer. Brodie’s Prime Export won gold and overall champion bottled beer. Lager won gold in the bottled Premium lagers & Pilsners, NZPA & Tiramisu both won silver, Sundown and Chuckleberry Sour took bronze (in their categories).

Windermere Pale was also awarded ‘Best Beer in the North West’ by CAMRA and Cumbrian Five Hop won CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain NW region Gold (Golden Ale category). At the beginning of the year we were proud to receive Cumbria Life’s Drink’s Producer of the Year award.

15TH BIRTHDAY, BEER FESTS & INVITATIONALS

We turned 15… and had a party to celebrate! We showcased breweries who were producing craft when we first began in 2002 and those who we have collaborated with over the years alongside a full range of our own beers.

That took us to 3 beer festivals this year including our spring and summer Northern Craft festivals. Our summer Northern Craft was one of our best years yet, throughout the three days of our festival 120 fresh and vibrant beers from 34 worldwide breweries were drunk at a rate of a pint every 9 seconds.

We also attended many beer fests throughout the year, including Fyne Fest, Beavertown's Extravaganza, Indy Man Beer Con, Craft Beer Calling, Thornbridge’s Peakender, Craft Beer Rising, Tiny Rebel’s Brewfest, Leeds International Beer Fest, Brett Fest in Amsterdam and Craft Beer Theory to name a few. Watch out for us at more craft beer events in 2018!

NEW BEERS & COLLABORATIONS

2017 saw us release Passionfruit Gose, Jantar, Jester & Galaxy Pale Ale, XPA, Session IPA, Mosaic, Galaxy and Orbit Pale Ales, Bourbon Barrel Aged Sour Cherry Tiramisu, Galaxy Dry Hopped Sour and Citra Dry Hopped Sour.

Collaborations for 2017:
Modern Times- Mojito and Fortunate Tarns
Wylam- Pleasures in the Darkness
Siren- Thresher
Crooked Stave- Key Lime Tau
Blackjack- Cherry Weisse
Northern Monk- Malt
Marble- Burning Sky Collab for Marble’s Birthday

EXPANSION AND INVESTMENT

We’re getting bigger and better! Following our investment deal this year we are expanding to become a two site brewery, installing a state of the art and first of its kind in the UK, £3 million Krones brew kit. Our existing brewery at Staveley will continue production, concentrating on small batch specialist and limited edition beers. It currently produces 7,000 barrels (11,500 hectolitres) per year. This means more beer, new beer, but most importantly our beer.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY 2018

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Beer Fests
23rd-24th March - Spring Beer Fest
19th-21st July - Summer Beer Fest

Live music at The Beer Hall
10th February - Molly Warburton
17th February - The Seals
31st March - Molly Warburton
7th April - The Groove Cutters
14th April - Paper Cranes
12th May - Pons Aelius
26th May - Jim Bean
2nd June - Olta

AWAY
25th-27th January - Manchester Beer and Cider Fest
22nd-24th February - Craft Beer Rising, London
14th April - Damson Day, Lyth Valley
31st May- Trackside Meet the Brewer, Bury
28th June - Key Lime Tau Day

Check our What's On page for more info.