Curious Brewing


Curious Brewing is a brewery in Ashford, Kent. It was established in 2011 and is owned by the Kent-based winery group Chapel Down., it has been headed by former Anheuser-Busch InBev manager Matthew Anderson.

History

Chapel Down had started producing lagers in 2010, importing beer and ales from the Leicester-based brewery Everards, but wanted to open a local production unit. The brewery was given permission to develop from the town council in late 2016. The site was purchased for development in November 2017 following a £1.7 million investment, mostly from crowdfunding.
The company chose to invest in Ashford because of its prominent location on the High Speed 1 railway. The brewery own a bar inside St Pancras railway station, London, at the other end of the line. The premises were planned to be fully open in April 2019 with a production capacity of, with an accompanying restaurant and visitors centre. The people who donated to the crowdfunding scheme, which raised £1.16 million of the funds, receive a discount on products, with those contributing over £25,000 having their names engraved on one of the fermentation tanks. A waterfall was constructed on one side of the premises.
In March 2019, the brewery announced that the new premises would not be fully open until the end of May owing to a problem with the groundwork. Once open, production in Ashford would quadruple from the existing capacity, catering for up to 170,000 pints of beer at any one time. It opened on 10 May.

Brewery

The brewery is located on a former brownfield site on Victoria Road, near Ashford International station. The ground floor includes of publicly-accessible areas including a shop and bar. Elsewhere, there is a bar with two dining rooms. A waterfall is installed down a side of the building. The premises is on a brownfield site that previously housed the Beaver Road School, which was demolished by a bomb during World War II on 24 March 1943. The brewhouse is named "Miss Adams", in honour of the school's head teacher who managed to evacuate all children immediately before the blast.

Product range

The company produces a variety of beers and lagers, using winemaking methods. These include Curious Brew and Curious IPA. As well as draught products, the group produces Curious Session IPA in cans, which was launched on Beer Can Appreciation Day, 2019. At 4.4% alcohol by volume, it replaced the stronger Curious IPA at 5.6% ABV.
A special selection of "Curiouser and Curiouser" beers has been introduced. The name comes from the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland where Alice said that things were getting "curiouser and curiouser".