Thirsty Musing: February

The spring cleaning of our website continued into February. I persuaded the team to get their mugshots taken, which were used as the basis for our new ‘Our People’ page. We really want to get to know each of our customers, and, in turn, allow you guys to find out a bit about us when having a mooch around our website. Being able to strike up personal relationships is, first and foremost, great fun. Secondly, it’s a major competitive advantage we’ve got over bigger breweries; one that we’re only too happy to lean into.

I planned on releasing some insta/Facebook posts that are a sort of spin-off from our people page, but these were put on hold when I saw Local’s utterly brilliant post which showed each of their team when they were kids. This embodied that aforementioned strength of allowing customers to get to know your team personally then multiplied it by ten. Instead of being a faceless, homogenous, transnational beer or coffee brewer, this post showed the world that the business that you - the customer - are interacting with is made up of fellow human beings that were once young, daft, and didn’t know a great deal about the big wide world. It’s cool that Local saw this type of post done by a coffee shop over in Mississippi - wholesome posts travel far and fast!

We teased a new collab in last month’s blog, and it was in the first week of February that Max brewed Peer Assessment - our second ever collaboration. The folks over at Stu Brew had reached out to us before I started working here in July ’25, and one of the first things that Max asked me to look into was to chat with them and see if they were still up for working on something together. I first spoke with a lad called Alex back in August, who was running their sales efforts at the time. He was nothing but friendly and enthused about the prospect of making something together. We met up, along with Lawrie - one of the brewers, and pontificated about what beers we fancied brewing. I had a vague idea of the gaps in our lineup that Max wanted to fill, but as someone who had only paid close attention to beer for a fortnight, I was largely winging it. This continued when they were kind enough to show me their brewing setup, tucked away behind Merz Court. But that meeting had yielded the one, most critical outcome - we were both bang up for releasing a collab beer.

We pencilled in October for our brew, but a combination of their brewers settling back into student life and Thirsty Moose getting our first batch of merch and gift sets lined up ahead of Christmas meant that it was too much of a stretch. It was agreed that we’d push the brew back to the start of Feb; when exams and the festive madness were in the rear view mirror.

Originally we envisioned us brewing a new brew each, but the difference in production capacities and ingredient costs made it too complicated to figure out how we’d split up the total number of casks. Therefore, it made more sense to brew the same recipe, using all the same ingredients but purchased individually, with the beer then sold individually too. Lawrie had been tinkering with a recipe for a west coast pale ale, which was one of the beers that Max also wanted to make. After Max looked over it and gave a ‘peer assessment’, it was decided that this was our collab beer of choice. We agreed back in August that we’d use Stu Brew’s standard pump clip design as the basis for our collab, but integrate our moose logo into their hops logo. Will - this year’s president of Stu Brew - created the design and ended up nailing it. With having a restricted graphic design budget and an agreeing internally to never use AI for our designs, this generosity from Stu Brew was hugely appreciated. For a young, busy brewery like us with only a handful of staff, Stu Brew were incredibly easy to work with and very selfless with their time, which is saying something given that they’re all pursuing higher education endeavours before all else.

The team at the Microbus were equally generous with their willingness to support us both. It’s worth firstly mentioning that they’ve been one of our best customers since we first opened. They’ve always gone above and beyond to celebrate our ales and stouts; emphasising that we’re fellow Gateshead residents. 

It was actually back in August when Alex at Stu Brew had mentioned the idea of launching our beer at the Microbus. When we approached Gary with the idea, he was only too happy to play host. Having this support is a really big deal for us. Not only are they serial winners of CAMRA pub of the year award, but the whole culture of the place is second to none. Check out their socials for ample examples of this; punters from around the globe with Microbus t-shirts, hosting such a rich variety of events and beers, and their CEO and (I think) labradoodle Harriet taking the lion’s share of the limelight. 

The way they’ve got the absolute maximum out of the space they occupy beneath of the areas many railway arches would even make George Clarke drop his pint. Seeing the curved roof and transforming it into the inside of an original VW Microbus is a stroke of genius. The bar is the cherry on the cake; made out of what must be an original VW Microbus, plus there’s other VW paraphernalia (including a door) hung up on the walls. They’ve also leaned into the specific ‘bus’ side of their name, and have a live digital bus stop timetable up on the wall too - absolutely class!

The launch event was a blast. Nights like that are right up there for us as one of the best things about being a microbrewery. Being able to drink our new beer, that we’d spent the previous month bringing to life, with our nearest and dearest was fantastic fun. Thanks for all who could make it, and thanks to Harriet, Suzy, Gary, and Ian for giving us your brilliant hospitality. The more memories we can make like that the better!

Going into March, we’re excited about going to the Wylam Beer Festival that’s happening on the 7th of March. Coincidentally, we’re also going to begin pouring at the Boathouse in Wylam too, which is home to loads of great cask ale, alongside with the South Causey Inn (who are hosting the Michelin Star winners Hyem for a 6 month residency), The Plough, Cramlington, The Lead & Dott, Nottingham, plus a whole host of new pubs in the Stoke area and North West, thanks to the wholesalers we work with.

Our search for a potential tap room premises continues. We’ve made some very promising inroads into one place in particular; it’s too early to share anything at this stage without anything being formally agreed, but I hope that we’re able to bring you some good news in the not too distant future. 

The team will be meeting up this coming week like we do every month. New beer releases for spring will be top of the agenda :) 

Feb was fun, cheers everyone,

Sam

Thanks for reading.

Stay Loose, Drink Moose.