OUR STORY

Brewing History

In 2019, our founder and head brewer Max began his brewing journey from humble beginnings. Inspired by the Lindisfarne Monks, his first few brews were mead before he soon moved onto the good stuff.

On his very first batch of beer, he tried cooling it down in the bath. Then, while attempting to move it back to the kitchen, he slipping going down the stairs and covered the cream carpet in his brew...

of stout, no less.

A lesser man would have concluded his brewing journey there and then. But Max dusted himself down, cleaned up the carpet, and went back to the drawing board.

He upgraded his production facilities in 2020 from the kitchen stove and relocated to a stable, which warranted him buying a Grainfather. This afforded him the space to hone his brewing skills through Covid.

The very first versions of Canny Canuck, Northern 22, and Oot n' Aboot were created during this time. Max was able to brew a tonne over these couple of years, all the while working full time job.

Those who tried his early beers thought they were spot on, so Max began to think how he could turn this passion into a vocation. This prompted him to complete the 4 day intensive course down at Brewlab, Sunderland.

By early 2022, Max was approaching 27 years old, and life wasn't showing any signs of slowing down -

now was the time to take the plunge!

He sourced a professional 6 BBL brewhouse (~981 litres) and three fermentation tanks from Portsmouth. Once the equipment was installed and the company was registered and licensed to sell alcohol, Thirsty Moose Brewing Co was born.

The North East brewing scene welcomed us as one of their own. None more so than Hadrian Border, who began selling Thirsty Moose at their Station East pub, provided us with a reliable can and keg filling service - and continue to do so. A whole host of other Tyne & Wear pubs were kind enough to take a chance on us, most of which we continue to serve today.

In 2023, just a year after opening, our Oot n' Aboot IPA and our flagship Canny Canuck won silver at the North East SIBA Independent Beer Awards.

Thirsty Moose also became SIBA accredited in 2023, then Max passed his Level 4 EPA Brewers Qualification the following year.

Hadrian Border strikes again! After we were lucky enough to win the Newcastle CAMRA Battle of the Beers Award, they invited us to co-create a beer, which we aptly named 'Struck Gold'; our first ever collab.

With the help of many other CAMRA festivals, national wholesalers, and being discovered by pubs we'd otherwise have never heard of via Sellar, we're slowly but surely growing our customer base across the country.

Family History

It was the mid-1800s; our ancestors were dairy farmers in Ayrshire, Scotland looking for new opportunities to grow their business.

After hearing about an exciting opportunity, they took their relatives, kids, and Ayrshire cows all aboard a steam boat, over the Atlantic, up the St Lawrence River, and to a new home just outside of Montreal.

Over the next century, their dairy business flourished. In fact, they loved Canada so darn much, they even branched out into making Maple Syrup! Then, in the 1970's, the construction of Alcan Lynemouth, Northumberland, brought some of our family back over.

Our Canadian side of the family has been back in the North East for 4 generations now; the latest being Max and Esme's young twins, who were born just a few months after opening the brewery - so remember to cut Max some slack if you ever see him yawning!

We couldn't be happier to call the North East of England our home, and do our best to express our love for this region in the names and designs of our beers. And Canada has given us some belta holidays down the years, plus it always gives us the chance to catch up with our fam living on the other side of the pond.

The transatlantic entrepreneurial spirit still very much lives on today through each of our real ales and stouts. This is why our beers bear the name Thirsty Moose; as a nod to our Canadian roots, and because life, quite frankly, is thirsty work!

So, after an ancestral round trip to Canada and many brewing iterations, the end result is carefully made, small batch real ale and stout with the TLC they thoroughly deserve.

We pay homage to our North American roots through the hops we use a number of our star ingredients - none more so than in our Maple Brown Ale, going by the name Canny Canuck.

For our family-run business, our job is to keep the craft beer and good times flowing. We hope you enjoyed learning where we came from, and that you'll come along with us on our journey.

Stay Loose, Drink Moose.