Reading and its surroundings seems to be a magnet for craft breweries, and we’re lucky enough to be bucking the national trend again with another new brewery opening – Mysterious Brewing.
Mysterious Brewing is based just outside Reading, in Silchester, based on the same site as Little London Brewery. Brewers Ken Barker and Adam Sculthorp have both been winners of Reading Amateur Brewer awards in the past, and decided to turn a successful hobby into a part-time business. One of those wins allowed Ken to work with Elusive to brew Mystery Fox, a 4.2% American Pale Ale. The name became an inspiration for the name of their brewery.
Little London are a more traditional English brewery, so Adam and Ken have had to invest in a fair bit of additional kit – some conical tanks, and their own canning facility. Former local brewery Wild Weather had a canning line next door that they had kindly offered to let Mysterious use. Sadly for us all though, Wild Weather recently moved to Wales. Ken and Adam adapted quickly and now have their own micro canning line too.
The first beers to be available will be Avalon, a 4% English Pale Ale, Plan-B, a 5.4% American Pale Ale, Red My Mind, a piney Red IPA and Cursed, a 4.2% tropical IPA. The beers are having their public launch at the Nags Head on Thursday 25th May, so head along there to try them all out. After that they’ll be at A Hoppy Place in Maidenhead at 7pm on Friday 26th and at the Neck of the Woods drinks festival at Park House on both Friday 26th and Saturday 27th, so plenty of opportunities to meet Adam and Ken.
Beyond the initial launch keep an eye out for what might be an Andy Parker inspired beer coming soon. That’s right – there’s a Black IPA is currently in the tanks too!