WOW! We can’t quite believe we are coming to the end of 2024. It’s been another year of brewing and events, and we’ve loved every minute. Thank you to all our wonderful customers for your continued support – we really do appreciate it. We started the year on a high after Hop to It won Gold in its category at the 2023 SIBA East Independent Beer Awards, and we’re finishing on a high, as it’s also just been awarded Gold at the 2024 SIBA East Regional Bottle/Can Awards, for the IPA category. Seasonal beers, collaboration brews, live music, festivals, quizzes and more – let’s take a look at what 2024 looked like for the Briarbank.
Award success
Hop to It, our DDH IPA has enjoyed a series of award wins this year. This beer, part of our core range, picked up a gold award in the category Keg IPA at the 2023 SIBA East Independent Kegged Beer Awards in January and silver for the overall Champion beer. Alongside this, it was entered into the SIBA National Independent Awards 2024, where it was awarded silver in the category Keg IPA. And more recently, it collected a gold award in the IPA category at the SIBA East Regional Bottle/Can Awards 2024 – which took place earlier this month.
And the awards didn’t stop there. Mango, another of our core range, took silver in its category at the 2023 SIBA East Independent Beer Awards, and Suffolk Haze was awarded bronze in the Pale Ale category at the SIBA East Regional Bottle/Can Awards 2024. We love nothing more than brewing our beer, and the competition at these events is so high. With so many amazing independent brewers in our region, it’s been an honour to pick up these awards this year. Congratulations to all the other breweries who also collected awards.
Seasonal Beers
Alongside our core range, we also brew seasonal beers, and this year was no different. We brewed our autumnal beer, Spiced Pumpkin Ale and celebrated ten years of brewing Insanity Claus. Alongside this, Grounds for Divorce V2 was released as a limited edition brew. Standing at a whopping 12% this beer was aged in a Planteray rum barrel for three months, giving this rich, dark and smooth beer a huge complexity of rum and oak flavours. If you haven’t yet been able to try this, we have a very limited supply available on our online shop.
Collaborations
One of the things our head brewer, Rob, has always loved about the brewing industry is the community amongst brewers, and this year, Rob was fortunate enough to produce five collaboration beers with five independent breweries from our region and further afield.
Each collaboration day was filled with laughter, sharing of knowledge, and, of course, brewing some incredible beers. We joined forces with:
· Old Chimneys to produce Orange Dawn a Barley Wine
· Artefact to brew Karate in the Garage a DIPA
· Copper Beech to create Side show a Pale Ale
· Datum Attitude to produce Don’t Think Just do a Pale Ale
· Ampersand to brew Bitter Pils a West Coast Pilsner
These collaboration brews were available at the Ipswich Beer and Cider Festival and our own August Beer Festival. If you had the chance to try one, we’d love to know what you thought.
Quiz Nights
Our head brewer turns quiz master the first Thursday of the month, as our tap room hosts our monthly quiz nights. From general knowledge and sports questions to TV and film, music and more, there’s a round to suit everyone. So, if you’ve not yet been, why not get your team together and come and join us in 2025? It costs £2 per person, with a maximum of six to a team.
Festivals
Here at the Briarbank, we love a festival, and 2024 didn’t disappoint. Our biannual beer festival returned in April and August, with our Gin and Rum Festivals in May and September. Plus, we also had our German Beer Tap Takeover. There was, of course, live music throughout the events, and we certainly enjoyed sourcing all the wonderful drinks we had on offer.
And let’s not forget that Rob, our Head Brewer, once again organised the Ipswich Beer and Cider Festival in association with CAMRA.
We’d like to thank everyone who came to one of our festivals, and the bands who performed. We hope you all enjoyed them as much as we did.
Live Music
2024 was the year of Friday night live music at the Briarbank. It all started with the amazing The Three Chordettes on Friday 29 March, and what an amazing line up of live acts we had. From solo artists to bands, punk, rock, 50s classics, pop and more – we can’t wait to do it all again in 2025. Our popular Sunday Jazz afternoons continued, and it was an honour to have some very talented jazz musicians with us throughout the year. They will, of course, continue in 2025 on the third Sunday of each month – and the first three months’ line-up has already announced. Head to our what’s on page to find out more.
A look ahead to 2025
What can we say about 2025? They will, of course, be live music, festivals and the return of our quiz nights and Sunday jazz afternoons.
We’ve also got some really exciting plans in the pipeline – but that’s all we can say at the moment.
We’d like to say a big thank you to all our customers for their support throughout 2024 and to our amazing Briarbank team. Without you all, we couldn’t continue to do what we love, so thank you! We can’t wait to welcome you in 2025. We hope to see you soon.