SLEEPING BREW TEA - THE BREW

You may or may not be aware that towards the back end of last year it was announced that our little Tea House would be collaborating with the masterminds over at Cameron's Brewery. We would stick our heads together over a couple of initial meetings and brew up a tea infused ale.

I thought I would bring you folks along for the ride and take you on the journey I have had so far.

It started with a group meeting around one of our tables in Tea House HQ. Table 4 to be exact. That's the big square one in the corner near all the loose leaf. That's where it began. A few sniffs of tea here and a few sniffs there. A small collection of teas were bagged up and Cameron's were back on their way to the testing labs to see which one we would run with.

It was decided that our most popular green tea Sleeping Beauty was going to be the one.

After a couple of weeks and plenty of emails back and forth a name was settled on and the artwork was being developed.

Sleeping Brew Tea was born and now it was time to get our brew on.

I arrived at the crack of dawn, arriving to Cameron's Brewery in total darkness. A hard hat (in the style of a cap) and a high-vis jacket on and I was ready to roll.

We had trialled small batches out in the Tea House but this was a completely different ball game. This was proper!

It was time for the hops.

A quick look in while holding firmly onto my hat.

Then the real work began.

With the hops out it was time to get the huge tea bags ready to infuse with the ale. This was the biggest homemade pillow case tea bag you can ever imagine. The smell of the tea was unbelievable.

There was no chance I was risking being dragged into this huge tank of boiling ale so I let the expert drag it out.

It came out a little something like this.

I died a little inside as this tea was now just finished with. I wanted to wash it all out and brew up the biggest pot of tea you could ever imagine.

This was our first batch of the trial Sleeping Brew Tea and to be honest it wasn't quite right. It tasted too hoppy and we want this to be blooming perfect so this batch was a no go.

A new batch was brewed a couple of days after and this did not let us down. You can go grab yourself a pint of this at the brand new Head of Steam in Norton.

It still needs a few tweeks here and there which is why it is only being sold as a trial brew. We still have a few months to get it perfect for it's official launch in May. This beer brewing is thirsty business.

I am super excited to see where this takes us as Cameron's have been a pleasure to work with. 

Cameron's is based in Hartlepool so I am sucker for it being local and independent. I think I need to go do a toast for all of these things so don't mind me.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Yousef for being a total babe though the whole process of this and I am so excited to be working with Cameron's this year.

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