Legs Legs Legs

Welcome to The Three Legs Brewing Co. Fancy a pint?

The Three Legs Brewing Co. Mel, Seamus, Ben, Jono and Chris.

How did The Three Legs Brewing Company get started?

Ben.  I was living in London, working in the restaurant industry, where I met many interesting producers and other people in that field. I wanted to get out of London and find a way of working in something fulfilling out in the country. So I studied for a winemaking degree at Plumpton College in East Sussex for three years. During that time, we started brewing in the winery for ourselves. We use to make our beer for harvest time, which escalated from there. We gave neighbouring businesses beer to begin with, and they would come back and ask for beer. So we began to sell it to them, and before you knew it, we were in there every weekend brewing.

I lived in Rye then; we used to drive past the farm where we are now based, on the way home every night. We talked about making a go of things with our setup. Nine years ago, we started with a shipping container across the yard from where we are today. When I say we, that includes a director Sam, who left to pursue a winemaking career in France. We made two to four casks a week, most of that went to The Standard in Rye. We had realised that we were losing money, even though none of us were taking any wages. It was becoming quite an expensive hobby, but we decided to go all in. Production escalated, and after a year, we moved into a larger unit.

We attracted a bit of investment based on the quality of the product. So we got our first commercial brew kit, which was 770 litres per brew with two or three fermentors. Then we opened a retail shop essentially, with a counter and a shelf filled with all our beers; people would come here for their takeaway beers.

We were offering people samples, and they wanted to have a pint; at that stage, we weren’t licensed to sell alcohol for consumption on the premises, so we sorted that out and got our license. Before you knew it, we were the hub of the village, and we had people coming up on Friday nights and Saturdays, sometimes standing room only. So we carried on like that for probably two years. Then we started to employ people. Seamus joined us and started to learn to brew while we were still using the original smaller kit, and we did that for another year.

Demand was outstripping supply; we have always been aiming at quality. We felt the local beer market back then was a bit brown and 4%, not what we wanted to drink. So we focussed on being more modern and hop forward. The old kit was holding us back a little bit in terms of what we wanted to be brewing. So four years ago, we upscaled with more modern equipment; you can exclude oxygen from more parts of the production process. So you’re keeping the quality in the ingredients. We spend an incredible amount of money on hops, so you want that value to be expressed in the beer. The old kit was a bit more oxidative, which held us to more traditional styles. The new brewhouse allowed us to start carbonating beer for kegs as well as improving our cask output; this allowed us to start canning beer as well.

Tell us about your Three Legs beer.

Seamus.  So, our Pale #3 is the only beer in the range that has been with us since day one. It’s changed a lot, tweaked and modernised, but at the core has a similar style; it’s a session cask beer. We updated the way we make it with the newer kit. That means getting the most out of the hops, incorporating aromas and less bitterness. It was delicious on the old kit but even better with the new kit. It is a beer that we struggle to keep up with the demand. There’s been lots of talk about having multiple tanks for it; that might drive me mad. We could just brew that beer, but we’d all get very bored.

We’ve collaborated with other brewers, pubs, restaurants and friends dropping by; Rye Waterworks have come up and done some brews, Coldblow Roasters came and we did a coffee stout, The Crown in Hastings have been up too. It’s not something we advertise but we enjoy collaborating with others.

All the beers have pretty much the same basic process from start to finish. So whatever we’re brewing, it starts with base and speciality malts, the blend of which varies; that is the core of your beer. Then, depending on the ingredients, you mash that for a set amount of time. You boil the extract from that mashing process; you can add hops at this point. We’ve got a whirlpool; getting that kit was a significant step forward. It’s very straightforward tech, but it means we can extract loads of hop aroma without bitterness. Traditionally all the hops end up in the kettle, but then you extract aroma and bitterness, so unless you want something that’s quite bitter, you’re limited to the amount of aroma you can have; the whirlpool changes that.

The beers we like to drink are aroma-led rather than astringently bitter or traditionally hoppy; you’re getting to taste that as well. There are oils in the hops that you extract in too higher quantities if you boil them for too long. The whirlpool lets you taste and smell that as opposed to just getting bitterness. So all of our beers follow the basic process of making them. Mash, boil, and use the whirlpool to get a pleasant aroma but reduce the bitterness.

Most of our hops are American because they have really lovely aroma characters. And it’s what a lot of the market enjoys drinking. We’re also working with a small hop farm just outside of Tenterden for our Pale #4 which is brewed with exclusively UK hops.

Ben.  It wasn’t available to us five or six years ago. It seems some UK hop growers are now going down a more American route, focusing on quality and not a commodity crop. They pick, process and package on the spot, giving quality and freshness throughout the year.

“At university studying winemaking, we were less than studious, let’s say. And a lecturer used to refer to us as The Three Legs of Evil. At the time, we planned on setting up a vineyard and thought that would be our name. So we dropped the ‘of evil’ and started a brewery instead.”

As the ingredients might vary, how important is a consistent flavour?

Ben.  Consistency is something that we have an eye on; we don’t obsess over it. We make a handmade small-batch product as long as the fluctuations are within a tolerable curve, and it’s always as tasty as possible.

Seamus.  To get super-consistent beer all the time like larger breweries, we would need at least three tanks dedicated to each beer. So you would need to keep blending, brew a strong beer and cut it back with water to get the same flavour.

Ben.  And that would be the death of anything interesting. That is the product’s beauty, as long the consumers always get something within the ballpark of what they expect and what they’ve tried before.

Many craft beers have vibrant stylised graphics, and some walk a fine line between looking fun and childish; what do you think?

Jono.  Yes, and that will probably date but there are so many cool designs out there. I’ve not been here from day one, but since I came on board we’ve tried to continue the look and grow it as we move forward. I would love to do a little dude illustration as part of the branding though, I’m
not going to lie.

Ben.  We’ve talked about it, and the moment you try and be cool is the moment you become incredibly uncool. We try and go for something that represents us because it is part of the experience. If you buy a can of beer to take it home, there is no reason there can’t be value added by the aesthetic.

Jono.  The recipe of the beer leads the design. We just canned our West Coast IPA and the design represents the sea, colours and imagery I associate with the West Coast. I like old school iconography and fonts that have always been part of beer branding, and they are ripe for the picking. We can repurpose them and put them together with more modern bits, and then it still looks and feels like a beer. I like to make collages and handmade designs; they are not perfect, I guess; that’s the crossover with crafting a beer.

Ben.  Whether it’s branding or brewing, we wouldn’t be where we are today without brewing heritage. We brew a lot of cask beer, which is super traditional and has been much maligned in the past. Maybe because of the quality or because you may only find it served in quiet pubs where the output is low,
so the beer isn’t fresh. But it’s something unique to this country and should be celebrated a little bit more. It does need modernisation and care, but when it’s well cared for, it’s the best.

We’ve got a plan to brew an Extra Special Bitter, ESB, in the next few months, and that’s a bit of a retrospective look at brewing. A change in direction for us. You can’t just look at one area or style; we want to explore and try other things that interest us. Simply, a large part of what we do is get people together around the bar, have conversations and drink pints. You’ve got to enjoy it. We all spend a lot of time together here or down at Heist. If we didn’t have some connection to what we were brewing or drinking, it wouldn’t be authentic.

When we set the taproom up and put fresh casks up for the weekend, and somebody’s knocking that tap in the first cask, that is a privilege. We’ve always depended on the quality of the products because we know the beer well. If we drink a pint and there’s something not quite right about it, we take it off and put a fresh one on because that is a sustainable way to sell beer. Other places may not have that luxury, or they view it differently. Give someone the best pint you can every time they have one, and they will return. If somebody drinks and goes, oh, that’s good, that’s the money.

A good old pub is fantastic, but it’s only great if your drinks taste delicious. Free houses within the pub industry are strong because the people working in those businesses have the choice. When people talk about pubs, there is a massive spectrum, with some doing well. If someone is paying more for a pint of beer, it needs to be worth that. Say you go to the pub once a week and have three pints; you want that pint to be good value, which doesn’t always mean cheap, but worth the money you pay for it; really tasty and served in the best way. We can do nothing about the energy crisis besides putting a jumper on. We must dig deep and ensure that everything we deliver is excellent value.

Tell us about the taproom and being part of Heist.

Mel. So the brewery at Burnt House Farm becomes a taproom on Fridays 3 - 8 pm and Saturdays 12 - 8 pm. We’ve been doing that since a year in. We have tables down the middle of the brewery; it’s nice for people to sit in the heart of the brewery. Drinking what we’ve brewed where we brew it. We have cheeses, charcuterie and food trucks throughout the summer. We have loyal customers who have been coming for years from the beginning, and lots of people are coming to buy takeaways for the weekend.

Everyone who works here serves customers; having the people who make the beer around is enjoyable; they can ask questions. It’s what makes the taproom special; it closes that gap between what you’re drinking and how it’s made and the people that make it. It’s deeply satisfying to see people enjoying what we have made.

We also wanted to bring the culture of the taproom into Heist in St Leonards. We have all worked there at some point and get to talk about the beer with customers. We’ve known Ben and Kate (see RyeZine No. 3) for a while now through Farm Yard and having a drink. So it’s nice to get involved in something original in the area.

•   Brewery Taproom
Unit 11, Beeching Road Studios, Bexhill, TN39 3LJ
Instagram
www.thethreelegs.co.uk

•   The Three Legs @ HEIST.
22-26 Norman Road, St. Leonards-On-Sea, TN37 6NH
www.thethreelegs.co.uk/heist

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•   (Previously) Brewery Taproom
Unit 1 - Burnt House Farm, Udimore Road, Broad Oak, Brede, TN31 6BX