Goodbye, TicketyBrew

The ‘free advertising’ side of beer blogging has never sat well with me (although I’ve taken, and written about, the odd freebie over the years). I often catch myself writing about having a particularly nice pint of Scruttock’s Best down at the Pig and Whistle, and think, is that the stylishly-refurbished Pig and Whistle with a wide range of artisan gins and food service from 12.00 till 9.00? good old Scrut’s, with its surprisingly fruity note that lingers on the tongue? Not really what I’m about. Not unless they were paying me, and in that case it definitely wouldn’t be what I’m about.

But there’s one brewery I’ve made an exception for, almost since the first time I encountered their beer; there’s one brewery which could always count me as a dedicated and vocal fan. I’ve referred to TicketyBrew in 35 posts on this blog, going back to 2013, including seven posts devoted to their beers alone. It started in July 2013, when I nominated their Pale, on cask, as my beer of the year; I didn’t think I’d taste anything better in the remaining five months of the year – and as it turned out I was right. I wrote: The aromatic wallop of a good contemporary pale ale runs head-on into the soft herbal richness of a Tripel, and they dance. Which still seems about right. On cask, the Blonde was pretty amazing too – not to mention the Jasmine Green Tea Pale, the Golden Bitter, the Invalid Stout, the Marmalade Pale… On keg and in bottle, there was a really nice Dubbel, a superb Tripel, the East India Porter, the Rose Wheat, the Rhubarb Weiss, the Ginger Beer and some terrific hoppy pales… the list just went on. Not to mention more or less experimental styles – Munchner, Grodziskie, Mumme – and dotty one-offs like Marmite Stout or Tea and Biscuits Mild.

Golden Bitter, Invalid Stout, Marmalade Pale, Rhubarb Weiss – it feels like I’m reeling off lists of ancient paintbox colours or weird Victorian sweets, rich, mysterious, unattainable. And I’m afraid that unattainable is what they are. Duncan has wound up the brewery and the company; his partner Keri, who left a career in marketing to start TicketyBrew back in 2013, has gone back into marketing.

I’m really sorry they couldn’t make it work. In the last couple of years TicketyBrew had had all-new brewkit, taken on new staff (the last time I saw Duncan he was complaining about how little brewing he got to do these days) and even had a redesign. Distribution didn’t seem to be a problem, either. When I saw the Blonde and the Pale in Wetherspoons fridges across central Manchester – and particularly when I ordered a Blonde for my Leffe-drinking son, and saw his reaction – I thought they were set up. Perhaps appearances were deceptive. For whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to have worked out.

I wish both Duncan and Keri all the best – and I hope this won’t be the last the world of beer hears of Duncan. Not all of the styles he tried his hand at were equally successful, but his hit rate was ridiculously high. The East India Porter, the Green Tea Pale, the Golden Bitter – in fact, almost all the beers I’ve listed – were solid, solid beers, and a couple of them were classics: I’d put the Pale and the Blonde in that category, as well as the Dubbel and the Tripel.

Looking more broadly, I guess this is another example of a small brewery falling by the wayside, like Quantum and Offbeat. Only this isn’t just another small brewery – this is TicketyBrew, with the mad bottle labels and the pump clips you could spot from the street (very handy, that’s been) and the ‘Pale’ that was like a cross between a Tripel and a best bitter and the Stout that tasted of black treacle and the ‘Manchester Tart’ that actually tasted of Manchester Tart, and the small bottles for everything and the first few large ones just coming in (9% in 750 ml, really?), and the Invalid Stout with real liquorice and the Marmite Stout with God knows what (probably not real Marmite), and the Blonde that me and my German friend got absolutely pasted on and the way the Pale was right at the start and that amazing Seville Orange Pale, and the bottled Blonde that was probably a bit over-primed and the Grodziskie that practically exploded (Polish champagne, they call that), and the cherry Weiss and the rhubarb Weiss and the Citra Pale that was just as good as anyone else’s Citra pale, and the, and the…

I’m really going to miss them.

TicketyBrew, 14/2/2013 – ??/5/2018

Image credit: Beerbods