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8: Palace Pint
Age: 3 years
Location: Crystal Palace, London
Why it started
Grow Beer is an idea that started up in Brixton, London; there are now a number of groups (including the Palace Pint) that sprouted up under the Grow Beer umbrella, but they are all autonomous. “We have a meet up for drinking beer once a year but that’s about it,” says one of the Grow Beer founder Helen Steer.
“The idea behind Grow Beer is that anyone even with no experience whatsoever can get into growing. Many people who are part of Grow Beer have never grown a thing in their life. If we are going to make the green movement a movement then there has to be jobs within it, that’s why some groups do take the small amount of profit from selling their beer and distribute it among themselves. Palace Pint, however, put all their money back into other community projects in the area after they made some money in their first year.
One of the great things to come out of this is that we now have more men involved in community gardening and more women at the beer festival.
How many people involved?
There are roughly 1,000 people involved in Grow Beer now (and one has just set up in Germany).
What happens
People grow hops in locations in cities and towns - on council building roofs, in pots, in gardens. Everywhere. “We bring them all together on the same day so they can be weighed (as they do it in the Crystal Palace group) or to be thrown into the mush (in Brixton). Then the beer is kept an eye on but it is up to the individual groups to find a brewery and distributors interested in their beer.”
Does the group get funding?
It is all completely self-funded. Everyone who gets involved gets a free barrell of beer at the end of the whole process because it takes everyone to make it work.
What would they like to do next?
Grow Beer want to get a really strong set of resources together so this can be rolled out as a kit with all instructions available online.
What can you do to help?
You can join up! Go online
Can I set something like this up in my area?
Steer says: “We can get you everything you need to start one up. We give out the hops and kit on St Patricks day and then all we ask is that you let us know you’re up and running so I can put you on the map.”
Caroline Holtum brews Walthamstow Beer, one of the Grow Beer groups. It was launched this year, and they now have 80 Walthamstow residents growing Prima Donna hops in their gardens & allotments. Their local MP Stella Creasy has joined in “and has a hop plant growing in her mum’s garden!”
She advises: “Get something in your local newspaper or magazine to help spread the word to potential hop growers. The number of people interested in growing hops jumped by more than 100% when we had an article in our local magazine. And set up a closed Facebook group where hop growers can share tips, ask why their hop isn’t growing, give advice on dealing with pests etc. It’s contributed to the community spirit and made it feel like everyone is in the project together.”
Other projects that might be useful to look at include The Farnham Beer Project (an initiative of Transition Farnham) where the Farnham Hoppers grow and harvest hops in gardens around Farnham to produce a golden pale ale with help from Jim Taylor, the brewer at the Little Beer Corp Guildford. They’re planning a rollicking Green Beer fest in October ’14 to celebrate. “It’s our first year,” says Taylor. “Mid next week we’re bringing our hops together, and I think it will be enough for about half a brew. But that will increase, and so will the social side of it.
“It’s a bit like community gardening in a way because it’s people enjoying stuff in their garden, and hops are a nice crop to grow. But it’s so much about the community and social side of it, that in the end of the day you can ring people together at the end of summer to pick hops together and just before Christmas you can meet again and drink it together. It’s a great idea for micro breweries to have their local communities gather hops for them. People want more community in their lives, to connect and actually feel part of something. I think that’s why people are starting to buy more of their beer from local microbreweries. Also in our area there is a historical precedent to do it. This area used to be filled with hops! Now there is only one hop grower really.”
There is a wealth of online support too. On BrewUk there are helpful forums where you can ask questions about different crops, techniques and take part in general brewing banter. Their founder Greg Hughes thinks that home-brewing today has progressed massively from the 1970s; “It’s more about making a quality, craft brewed product than about simply producing cheap booze.”
In the real world, if beer-brewing really catches your imagination, perhaps you could meet up with the London Amateur Brewers, an enthusiastic and informal group of home-brewers from London and the Home Counties who meet once a month to share their skills, knowledge and beer. There’s an enthusiastic scene in Bristol too, where the community-organised Bristol Beer Week will be running from Sept 12-21; it features ‘meet the brewer’ events, food and beer tastings, education sessions, brewing demonstration, and lots and lots of craft-brewed beers for inspiration.
If you want a community beer but don’t want to grow the hops yourself, Topsham Ales is a micro-brewery which is a co-operative owned and run by members of the local community.
The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) is, it goes without saying, besides themselves with happiness about the huge growth of enthusiasm for beer. Neil Walker, the Camra press officer, points out that there’s been a massive improvement in the quality of ingredients available to homebrewers over the last 10 years. “You can now get fantastic specialty malts, British and international hops, and even different types of yeast all helping amateur brewers to create very authentic tasting beers.” If you get in touch with your local Camra branch, most of them have enthusiastic homebrewing clubs that may be able to help you or even want to get involved.
“In terms of more practical advice, I’d say visit a specialist homebrew shop and get some advice on what equipment they need for a basic first brew. Keep things simple to begin with. One type of malt and one type of hops. If you can brew a tasty, solid British pale ale confidently then you have a good base of knowledge from which the variety of recipes is only limited by imagination!”
He adds that there are now more than 1,200 breweries now producing beer in the UK. “From one-man outfits, to growing regional brewers, the brewing scene in the UK is really thriving.”
So far in this series ...
1. The community supported farm
2. The bike repair co-operative
3. The community garden centre
5. The meat-rearing collective
7. The neighbours’ community group
This article is part of the Live Better Community Project month. In September, we are showcasing 17 community projects from around the UK. On Wednesday 24 September, we will ask you to vote for your favourite project. The project with the most votes will be awarded £1,000 of funding, and two runners-up will each receive funding of £500. One voter chosen at random will receive £150 worth of gift vouchers for Nigel’s Eco Store. Terms and conditions here.
With thanks to: 10:10; FOE; Project Dirt; Neighbourly; UK Community Foundations; Groundwork; Business in the Community; Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens; the Prince’s Trust; Garden Organic; the Royal Horticultural Society; the RSPB; Keep Wales Tidy; The Wildlife Trusts; and Mind.
Interested in finding out more about how you can live better? Take a look at this month’s Live Better challenge here.
The Live Better Challenge is funded by Unilever; its focus is sustainable living. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
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