Hopscotch in its current form closed at the beginning of January – at the time of writing we had just distributed the last of our stock to Two Sheds, Guzzle Micropub, The Fat Cat, Boozehound@Cutlery Works and the Itchy Pig Ale House, five places that have given us amazing support over the last eight months, amongst others!
Joe has decided to take a step back from the brewery; he has a younger family than I do and did not have the time to push on to the next stage as planned. Rather than take Hopscotch on as a solo project, I’ve decided to rebrand. It didn’t feel right to carry on by myself as it was something we’d created together!
I’m re-registering the relevant licenses and certificates as Crosspool Ale Makers Society and hope to be trading again by the end of January. I’m pretty excited, I’ve had some equipment upgrades and renovated the brewery a little (although it currently looks a bit like a building site). I’ve also been ‘back in the kitchen’ working on recipes, both tweaking the old and coming up with the new.
The initial beer line-up is likely to be:
- Horatio Bright – 4.5% bitter orange golden ale
- Sandygate – 3.6% session blonde
- The Lost Tribe – 5.2% extra pale ale
There are a few more waiting in the wings too:
- 51 – 4.2% red ale
- Mount Zion – 4% smoky treacle stout
- Delph House – 7% DDH Imperial IPA
Mark