Less than two years since the first North Hop festival took place in Inverness, the organisers are taking their craft beer hooley on the road around Scotland.
Billed as ‘Scotland’s biggest ever celebration of craft beer culture’, the four date tour promises a blend of craft beer, cocktails, street food and live music.
The tour gets underway on Saturday 5th March 2016 at Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms before heading to Aberdeen (30th April-1st May) and Glasgow (18th-19th June). The tour will finish up in a as yet unannounced Highland location. Tickets for each festival are priced at £17.50 per person and are available here.
Previous events in Aberdeen and Inverness have sold very quickly so get your skates on if this sounds like your kind of lightly hopped pale ale.
Scottish breweries
Taking place across two sessions on 5th March, festival-goers at the Edinburgh festival can look forward to sampling a wide variety of beer styles in a selection of cask, keg, bottles and cans from thirteen Scottish breweries. These include Stewart, WooHa, Fallen, Drygate, Windswept, Tempest, and one of Edinburgh’s newest breweries, Edinburgh Beer Factory.
Edinburgh-based brewers, Stewart Brewing are creating a limited edition craft brew for the Edinburgh festival. The beer will be a Moscow Mule Saison – Festival Brew, inspired by the well-known cocktail and will feature notes of lime and ginger, with an IBU of 30 and ABV at 5.3%.
Stewart Brewing’s Head Brewer, Bruce Smith said of the Festival Brew: ‘With North Hop bringing together so many elements of craft beer, craft spirits, and cocktails, I took inspiration from a classic vodka cocktail, The Moscow Mule.
‘The fresh, saison-style beer will be infused with lime and ginger and will have distinct citrusy characteristics from the blend of American hops we’re using; Mosaic, Belma, Crystal and Willamette.’
Cocktail lounge
Whether this is fair or not, beer festivals in the past were often perceived as blokey affairs where not owning a beard was frowned upon. At previous North Hop events, visitors have been split pretty much evenly between men and women.
One reason for this is that while craft beers are at the heart of North Hop, beer is not the only attraction by a long way. Yeah, yeah, I know lots of women like beer but you know…
At Edinburgh’s North Hop, guests will be able to try a special limited edition small-batch gin from Leith-based newcomer Electric Spirit Co. James Porteous, the spirits lover behind the company (he is holding the orange bottles in the picture), promises it will be a classic juniper forward gin made with juniper from Poland, Croatia and Bulgaria.
Small batch very much means small batch with the Electric Spirit Co. and just a hundred bottles of the festival gin will be made and they will all be available exclusively at the Edinburgh festival,
Street food
The festival will also boast a cocktail lounge, featuring mixology and drinks from companies including 10 Dollar Shake, Solid Liquids and Bijou Wine.
A street food offering will include Mexican food from local restaurant El Cartel, Scotch eggs from Aye Love Real Food and seasonal, Scottish sourced dishes from Fresh Revolution.
A full programme of music, curated by Inverness-based creative industries festival XpoNorth, will complete the festival highlights.
Speaking of the festival’s plans for 2016, North Hop founder and festival organiser Michelle Russell said: ‘To be taking North Hop 2016 on the road is incredibly exciting. What started as a wee festival in the Highlands has now evolved into a year-round, nationwide programme celebrating the very that craft beer culture in Scotland has to offer. What’s more, all the dates are indoors, so we won’t be at the mercy of the Scottish weather!’