How do you come up with your beers?
This is a question we get asked all the time, and the answer always surprises people. From the outside looking in, it would make sense that our brewers, or production team would decide what beers we’re going to release, but in fact, we’ve always made these decisions as a team. From bar staff to sales and marketing, everyone has their say in what we make at Vault City.
Choosing the beers we’re going to brew is probably one of the most important decisions we can make as a brewery, and in typical Vault City fashion, we like to get the beers in and have a little fun with it…
No Beeraucracy
We plan our releases on a quarterly basis, so every three months we get together as a team, and everyone brings their best suggestions. This could be your dream beer, a collab you’d love to see, or something you thought of in the shower that morning – whatever it is, we want to hear it.
If you look at some of the beers we’ve released in the past, it’s clear we don’t take ourselves too seriously, which usually helps people feel comfortable enough to share their ideas.
The best suggestions can often come from the most unlikely places. Your partner, your mother, your mate down the pub, they all have a totally unique perspective, and it’s these wild card ideas that help get our creative juices flowing!
We check Untappd
From personal check-ins to feedback on Vault City’s latest releases – we drink it all in. Untappd can split the room, and that’s what makes it so great (even if it is a contentious subject sometimes). We talk through beers we’ve enjoyed, highly rated releases and we listen to what people are saying about the latest Vault City beers – the good, the bad and the indifferent. It all helps shape our next releases.
We listen to the Vault City community
We LOVE hearing your suggestions, and we’ll regularly chat with the Vault City community on social, and at festivals about the beers they’ve enjoyed most, and what they’d love to see in future. If there’s a suggestion that fits the bill, it makes it to the release schedule, and sometimes if the timing’s not right, we’ll revisit them at our next recipe meeting.
We think of the season
We can appreciate a good sour beer or stout all year round, and we often do, but there’s an undeniable seasonality to what we release. Not just because we use lots of seasonal fruit in our beer, but also because a cloudy lemonade in the sunshine feels more like summer than L̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶I̶s̶l̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶T̶V̶ t̶w̶o̶ ̶w̶e̶e̶k̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶-̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶s̶i̶v̶e̶ s̶u̶n̶ ̶b̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶S̶c̶o̶t̶t̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶n̶e̶c̶k̶ a̶ ̶m̶e̶l̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶a̶m̶ ̶d̶r̶i̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶e̶ - all of the above.
In short, some beers are built for summer. Some are not. We try our best to keep the weather in mind when it comes to new beers.
We plan
Last but certainly not least, once we’ve gathered all the suggestions and chosen our favourite releases as a team, we see what works well together. We get the ball rolling on collabs. We decide what beers become our new sessions, mid and high-vaultage sours.
Voilà! A new batch of Vault City beers are brought to life. We'll drink to that.
