If you’re anything like me, you might have noticed that a certain dark beer has slowly but surely become the most ubiquitous beer in the UK. I am of course talking about Guinness. Now the most popular beer in the country (by value) it feels almost impossible to escape the gravity created by The Black Stuff.

Many of the smaller breweries I speak to—particularly those in Ireland—malign the ubiquity of Guinness. But perhaps where there is one popular stout that a whole new generation of drinkers is drawing enjoyment from there is also opportunity. Convincing someone to switch up from their favourite macro lager into something a bit more complex is challenging, but if they’re already drinking stout, that way opportunities potentially lie.

At FyneFest I recruited a panel from three independent breweries who are doing incredibly exciting things with their dark beers. At Lost Cause, Colin Stronge is continuing the great work he built his reputation on at breweries like Buxton and Salt, but now completely under his own steam. In Northumberland, Rigg and Furrow is focused on producing beers with a sense of place, and this feeds into some truly unique stouts and porters. Marketing manager Harriet Edgar is here to fill us in on those. And at Barney’s Beer in Edinburgh, career brewer Andrew ‘Barney’ Barnett is getting really experimental with his post mortem series.

While you won’t get to taste through the beers like our gathered audience at FyneFest, by listening to this you will get to enjoy a fascinating, and hugely jovial conversation about why we love dark beers with three hugely entertaining guests. The laughter and merriment throughout is a great reminder of why we return to the festival every year, and why you should consider joining us next time around. Until then, get your ears around this.

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Let’s begin the description of this episode with a mea culpa.

In February 2025 I visited the Trading Route, a new venue from the people behind Manchester Union Brewery, and Manchester restaurants Trof, and Stow. One of the main reasons I was excited to go was because Manchester Union co-founder Will Evans had appeared in an Instagram video advertising slow poured versions of their lager, complete with voluminous creamy heads.

Slow poured lager—like that offered at Denver’s Bierstadt Lagerhaus—is something I love. This method of pouring the beer in stages, letting the beer rest for anywhere between three to seven minutes between each stage of a three or four part pour has this magical effect of bringing out malt sweetness. This works particularly well in bitter lager beers, such as Bierstadt’s eponymous Slow Pour Pils. Manchester Union’s own lager is a 12º Czech-style, decoction mashed pilsner, with a bitterness of around 35IBU (International Bitterness Units) which brings it close the the 39 possessed by perhaps the most famous Czech lager in the world: Pilsner Urquell.

Only, that’s not quite what happened. The food was fantastic, the lager itself tasted great. But when it came to the slow pour, I found the experience to be lacklustre, so I decided to use the experience to practise my critical writing skills over at my personal blog, Total Ales.

Here’s the thing though. Trading Route, sidled right up to the brand new Aviva Studios (or Factory International or whatever you want to call it) is a lone independent in a sea of transplanted London-chains, from Hawksmoor to Dishoom, and even a brand new Caravan Coffee right next door. Good ideas often take time to perfect, especially without the same level of resources of those chains I’ve just mentioned. Was zooming in for a hot take three months into Trading Route existence the right thing to do? Maybe, just maybe, I jumped the gun a little with my review.

Regardless, I’ve now been back to the Trading Route—in a way, Manchester Union’s de facto taproom—several times, and on my last two visits the Slow Pour was served as advertised. I also took this opportunity to catch up with Will on record, and have an important conversation about the brewery he helped to establish in 2018, because it’s a brewery worth knowing about. Manchester Union is the city’s only dedicated lager brewery, and the fact that they’re concentrating on Czech style lagers (including a fantastic dark lager) is an important point of difference to me. How do you stand out when lager is still the most visible product on any given bar? The answer is quite Mancunian in nature, as it happens: to do things differently.

In this episode of the Pellicle Podcast I catch up with brewery co-founder Will Evans and get to the nub of what makes Manchester’s only dedicated lager brewery tick.

With special thanks to our dedicated Patreon supporters who help bring the Pellicle Podcast to life.

One of the best things about making a yearly trip to Fyne Ales for FyneFest is that I get to check in on the brewery’s Origins side project.

It’s the vehicle for its wild beers, typically produced using mixed or spontaneously fermented and then barrel-matured beer, and often showing locally grown fruit, or forage herbs. These beers are a long way from cherished Fyne Ale classics like Jarl or Highlander, but they arguably show an even greater ‘sense of place’ than the cask beers that put this particular brewery on the map.

For the past couple of years the project has been under the stewardship of Dan Wye, an experienced brewer who now lives next door to the brewery in Glen Fyne. When he took the project on he was given carte blanche to make Origins his own, which he did initially by gutting and cleaning the small brewery he uses to produce wort, and even getting rid of a few barrels he felt didn’t meet his standards.

Any fermentation project such as this needs time, and now we’re at the point where Dan has his feet under the table, and Origins is beginning to produce some incredibly special beers. Among these are what Dan likes to refer to as ‘Chimeras’. Named for the mythical beast from the Greek classics, with the body and head of a lion, the head of a goat and a snake for a tail, Dan’s Chimera’s are far less threatening. Instead he uses the term to describe hybrid beers that are designed to ape beverages like wine or cider, but don’t feature any of the ingredients that would be traditionally used to make such drinks.

The results are pretty magical, with beers such as Smudan employing Nelson Sauvin hops before being further aged on gooseberries, elderflower, limes, sunflowers, marigolds and borage to imitate both the mouthfeel and flavour of cold climate Sauvignon Blanc. It’s a seriously impressive beer, but don’t take my word for it. The beer is carried by local restaurant, Inver, which presently holds a Michelin green star.

If you recognise Dan’s name, it’s because he featured on a Pellicle podcast recorded at FyneFest in 2024. On this occasion Dan spoke alongside The Kernel’s Evin O’Riordain, Mark Tranter of Burning Sky, and Will Harris of Balance Brewing in Manchester. This year, we figured seeing as he’d been super busy releasing lots of beers, and the fact we’re literally on his doorstep, it might be nice to have a one to one conversation about what he’s been up to.

Speaking of which, keep your eyes out for a forthcoming Origins, Pellicle collab in the not too distant future. I’ll be heading to Fyne Ales for non-FyneFest related reasons for the first time ever to help make a foraged beer that helps explore a notion I’m rather cynical about… Terroir. Expect more details soon!

We’re able to produce The Pellicle Podcast directly thanks to our Patreon subscribers, and our sponsors Loughran Brewers Select. If you’re enjoying this podcast, or the weekly articles we publish, please consider taking out a monthly subscription for less than the price of a pint a month.