North East brewer shares British expertise with colleagues across the Atlantic

Hadrian Border Brewery, located in Newburn to the west of Newcastle, will mark 25 years in the brewing business this year and is collaborating with an American-based brewer to produce a special beer to celebrate.

The Airline Brewing Company, from Maine in the US, visited the North East brewer to share expertise and celebrate great British beer.

Well known in the North East for its Tyneside Blonde and new beer Northern Pale, Hadrian Border Brewery is owned by Andy and Shona Burrows. The brewery was originally set up in Berwick in 1994 but needed larger premises by 2000 leading to a new home in Byker. The brewery moved to its current location in Newburn in 2011 as the business once more grew in size.

Andy Burrows is a qualified brewing graduate, having studied for a degree at the Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh. He has also travelled extensively in his career spending time in India, China and Europe.

Andy and Shona employ 18 full-time members of staff across its brewery and two pubs. The brewery was one of the first in the country to achieve SALSA (Safe and Local Supplier Approval) certification following on with the +beer accreditation when it became available.

Andy said: “I love brewing and have gained a lot of experience and knowledge from my education and the travelling I’ve done. We were very excited about the visit from Gary and Sharon Cresswell from the Airline Brewing Company and enjoyed swapping brewing expertise and introducing different flavours and textures to our own brews.

“During the time that the team from Airline Brewing were in the North East, we brewed their New England IPA as well as collaborating on a joint brew, combining all of our brewing expertise and making it a fitting way to mark our very special business anniversary.”

Gary and Sharon Cresswell own the Airline Brewing Company which is based in rural Maine, just 30 miles outside of Bangor in the North East corner of America. The brewery specialises in old world beer from Britain and Europe and frequently uses the tagline ‘Old England in New England’.

Gary, originally from Yorkshire, built a small English-themed pub with his wife, recreating their favourite aspects of some of their locals from back home.

The small brewery they run brews cask ale which is rarely found in the US and they have collaborated with Andy and his Hadrian team in the past to learn the technicalities of brewing beer.

Gary said: “We have a growing demand for our real ale in the US with a number of local bars and restaurants planning on installing hand pulls. This visit is very important to us as Andy and the team at Hadrian are hosting our brewer for several days to help him refine our processes, especially focusing on carbonation levels and head retention.

“In return we are going to collaborate with the team on what is now called a New England IPA. It is a hazy unfiltered IPA that has huge popularity across the North East of the United States. It is very different from anything that is regularly sold in a pub at home.

“We thought it would be a great deal of fun to exchange styles of beer capturing the classic real ale texture and taste for us and bringing over something very new and different for the Hadrian Border Brewery team.

“We’re delighted and honoured that the New England IPA is being used to mark Hadrian Border Brewery’s very special anniversary and look forward to helping them celebrate their 50th in the future.”