10th Birthday Party

On the 18th of March, we welcomed our extended Siren family through our proverbial gates at our brewery residence to enjoy an incredible selection of craft beers and celebrate our 10th anniversary. We poured our way through birthday beers, classic favourites, limited revivals (Liquid Mistress anyone?), and even some dark temptations from our barrel store’s secret stash. Add to the mix some fantastic guest beers, and you get one hell of a party - and naturally, there was cake. A big shoutout to our Event’s Guy, Brodie, for organising a party that will not be long forgotten.

Mostly, thank you to the 100s of you who braved train strikes and rain to come down and make it a great day. It was the most people we've ever had here and we loved every minute.

Launch sites for anniversary beers

One hundred bars and bottle shops up and down the country helped us to celebrate the national launch of our birthday beers, with balloons, merchandise and plenty of fanfare. You may have spotted one of the launches at a venue near you - we're incredibly grateful for the massive outpouring of support for this very special launch.

A Hoppy Place to be

Maidenhead’s ‘A Hoppy Place’ played a key part in spreading the word, and taste, of our 10th anniversary celebrations. Hosting both a Maiden blending event (led by our Barrel Master and our founder, Darron) and a tap takeover on a packed Friday night, this call to alms for local craft beer was nothing short of spectacular. 

If you ever find yourself in Maidenhead (or indeed Windsor, the location of their other site), make sure to pop into A Hoppy Place. It's a fantastic bar, run by fantastic people. 

Photo credit - A Hoppy Place

Charity causes

For those feeling both lucky and generous at out 10th Birthday party, we offered up the opportunity to win a set of the past five Maiden bottles through raffle ticket sales. A grand total of £1,640 was raised, evenly split between three choice charities – Dingley’s Promise; delivering life changing support to under 5s with SEND, RNLI; helping to save lives at sea, and Launchpad; helping to prevent homelessness in Reading.

In a personal message, founder Darron took the time to write about Siren’s support for World Autism Acceptance Week. During this week, 10p from every £1 spent on our web shop was donated to the National Autistic Society – a figure that we then matched.  We’re delighted to announce that with your help we have raised £1,200 (at the time of publishing), which we will match before donating – Thank you!

Lastly, you may have seen our "April Fools" campaign - Waxed Maiden Cans. As it turns out, these were real. We have hand packaged and waxed just ten cans of Maiden, which went onto the webshop for a variety of prices - £20, £30, £40, £50, £60, £70, £80, £90, £100 and one for an incredible - £500. Now all have sold, and every single penny of this is going to our selected charities. That's an extra £1040. 

Thank you to everyone who indulged us in the ruse, and an extra special thanks to those who bought the cans. 

Tap Yard Action

Progressive, may be the key word surrounding our Tap Yard this past month. General manager Jon has continued his shake-up to include new drinks, new food, and new events. We now stock the wonderful Henley Gin in part of our quest to eat and drink more local, and we took our first step into the unknown by offering proper Sunday Roasts up for hungry visitors – watch this space for more to come in the near future.

In The Team

At the end of March, we welcomed in a new member to the Siren family – hello baby Rory! Our Webshop manager, Hannah, is now taking some well-deserved time off. Perhaps now is the time to introduce Siren branded Baby grows? Congratulations to Hannah and David. And in anniversaries, we're celebrating 5 years at Siren for Tim and 2 years for Richard, two integral people in everything we do in the marketing team. Thanks guys!

What’s next for Siren's 10th Year?

We’ve got our eyes set to the warmer months ahead, with a slew of festivals building up. We Are Beer and Hopsters Beach Street being two of the big ones that we can’t wait to get stuck into. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – we’re nowhere near done with our birthday celebrations for the year. Keep an eye out for more news to come soon.

March Releases

Crunchy Town – 4.2% Brown Ale

We were rather bowled over by the reception to this biscuit beauty with a sessionable strength. Crunchy Town was brewed as a collaboration with The White Hag and takes inspiration from perfectly caramelised cookies - gently spiced and packed full of speciality roasted malts for depth of flavour.

Barrel Aged Caribbean Chocolate Cake – 11.1% Barrel Aged Tropical Stout

The big one – it’s back. Or at least, it was. We were overwhelmed by the response to our fan favourite stout, which last made an appearance in 2020. This time, we gave it the full bottle experience, with a vibrant ‘electric pink’ wax. We sold out on our web shop in just 5 days, but you can still find this beautiful deep and tropical tipple in our Tap Yard residence.

Birthday Beers

Times Ten – 5% 100-Day Helles

100 days in tank brough the conception of this beautifully conditioned lager, with Mittelfrüh, Saphir and Czech Saaz hops offering fresh floral, herbal and subtle citrus flavours. With a base of cracker-like malts passing through just a hint of sweetness, we loved this crisp, refreshing and perfectly balanced Helles-style lager (and we hope you did too).

Exquisite Corpse – 6.9% IPA

A celebratory beer inspired by the Surrealist game. Ten elements of this IPA were contributed by people who have been influential to Siren over the years, the majority from amazing breweries. The only catch was that no-one knew what each other had proposed. A risk we were willing to take, and well worth the gamble for this super fresh IPA.

Crescendo – 11% Imperial Stout

A beautiful mash-up of our latest CCC project from last November. Crescendo combined cacao, vanilla, and coffee to create a medley like no other. Rich, punchy and totally moreish, in ten years of brewing stouts, they haven't come much better than this.

Maiden ’22 – 10% Anniversary Barley Wine

Like a birthday party without cake, our 10th Anniversary wouldn’t be the same without a new edition of our famed barley wine, released each year in commemoration of our first ever brew at Siren. You can read more about this years’ edition here.