That’s right Teabirds, your favourite Brighton-based indie brewers have joined forces to bring to the world the newest addition to our Tea Infusion Collection! Meet UnBarred, co-creators of our Raspberry Tea Sour Beer.
Please note this beer is no longer available.
The Collaboration...
At Bird & Blend we’re all about creating the best tasting & most exciting flavour innovations in the tea business. With UnBarred creating beers like their limited edition Granola NEIPA & their classic Joosy brew, we just couldn’t imagine a more perfect partner.
UnBarred was established in 2014 from the shed of founder and Head Brewer Jordan Mower. Born from a passion to brew uncompromising and exciting beer, their original flagship IPA won the Bev Robbins Award for the Best Sussex Beer in its first year of production. So you know this beer is going to be TEAriffic! They soon outgrew the shed and moved onto gypsy brewing, enabling them to grow production and hone their craft, working together with other fabulous breweries.
Their limited editions embody the creativity, passion and freedom that have always defined their core ethos. They’re inclusive, passionate and adventurous in everything they do, from their beer conception through to their design, brewing and welcoming taproom experience. To celebrate their roots, they work with local artists, independent businesses and fellow-creatives to showcase the best of the vibrant culture and boundless innovation of our beautiful city.
At Bird & Blend Tea Co. & UnBarred, we do things a little differently. You’re not barred, everyone’s welcome!
And so the Raspberry Tea Sour Beer was born...
The Process...
Jordan, Head Brewer & Founder explains, “The concept for us was to create a hybrid beer based on Bird & Blend’s much loved Blue Raspberry Tea.
Starting with a Berliner Weisse malt base we fermented with a lactic producing culture to lower the pH and produce a clean flavour profile. During fermentation we added 400 kilos of raspberries lending a big depth of flavour, aroma and colour. (That’s a lot of raspberries!)
We hopped with experimental hop ‘HBC 630’ which lends sweet berry-like characters of raspberry and cherries.
To fine-tune our process and make this a true collaboration as a collective, we steeped blue pea shoot flowers and green tea separately. in small batches we added the teas incrementally to find a sweet spot of balance. Once we found the correct levels, we increased volumes and blended with the base beer to create our Raspberry Tea Sour.”
Chief Mixologist & our Co-Founder Krisi says, “We chose our Blue Raspberry blend as it’s a fan-fave, it brews beautifully & we knew it would create a truly great tasting beer. The blue pea flower is one of the only places in nature where you can find food in a natural blue colour & once added to the beer base it turns a deep purple that is truly unique. We also added some of our Sunny Sencha, a blend which lifts the tea notes in the beer even more!”
Get your hands on our Blue Raspberry Tea or learn more about Blue Tea here!
The Results...
Krisi joined Jordan & the UnBarred team at their brewing & taproom in central Brighton, to taste & fine-tune the final beer. With such an abundance of knowledge between the two collaborators & the finest ingredients, we proudly present to you our Raspberry Tea Sour Beer. Uncompromising, packed with real fruit, flowers & our tea. Utterly beauTEAful.
Join us at the UnBarred Taproom, on the 8th December 4PM - 7PM to be the first in our communiTEA to try it! It’ll be an evening of tea tasting, beer tasting & tea infused beer tasting! What’s not to love!
