This weekend Moon Gazer beers, along with those of three other Norfolk breweries are part of an initiative to promote Norfolk beers, breweries and barley growers in Europe while creating closer ties with breweries in Belgium.
Our beers will showcase at the prestigious Leuven Innovation Beer Festival (21-22 May) which celebrates the best of world beer with knowledge and creativity in its production as its focus.
The beers will be our ever-popular Gluten Free Pintail, Cheeky Jack IPA – the Champion cask Beer of Norfolk – and our recent Belgian collaboration – Donkere Haas.
The other Norfolk breweries joining us well be; Grain Brewery, Poppyland Brewery, Tindall Ales. We will then each welcome back to Norfolk a Belgian brewery we have brewed a collaboration beer with to showcase at the Norwich City of Ale (25 May- 25 June 2023).
The initiative which is thought to be the first such twinning of 2 ‘beer cities’ was originally the brainchild of beer writer Roger Protz. When Roger was in Leuven he noticed that the city, with its long history and heritage of brewing, was known as Beer City and he suggested that brewers should consider getting together to make some collaborative beers with Norwich since it was known as the City of Ale.
As a result, earlier this year our merry band of four Norfolk brewers went to Leuven where we teamed up with our Belgian counterparts, recipes were created and plans made for the brewers to travel to Norfolk to brew the beers ready for the two festivals.
The brewers from Leuven are Hof ten Dormaal, Braxatorium Parcensis, De Coureur and Adept.
We were delighted to be teamed up with Dimitri from Adept.
As well as creating beers, as a group have also forged friendships, sharing passion, knowledge and experience of beers.
Our collaborative brew is Dark Hare (Donkere Haas) (ABV 5%) was created by Moon Gazer Ales and the Adept brewery, whose aim was to take a very old Belgian style beer and fuse it with a more traditional British style beer.
The beers can be found during the month-long City of Ale festival which starts in Norwich on Thursday 25th May and runs until 26 June and involved 59 pubs.