What is your brewery capacity?
60 bbrls/wk

What is different about your brewery?
It’s the only one in town.

Eddie would rather be drinking Gadds'

How long have you been brewing for?
Sufficiently long to be reluctant to admit but 17 yrs wouldn’t be far off.

How did you get into brewing?
I was hanging around a firkin pub one summer.

What beers do you brew regularly?
Oh god, lots.

What special/seasonal beers do you brew?
Too many.

Where do you think the future of brewing lies?
Good question : ‘brewing’ covers a diverse range of business sizes and styles. For me though it’s about localism : short, direct supply chain, rapid turnover and consequently fresh beer.

What is you proudest moment in brewing?
Pride comes before a fall, never more so than in brewing.

Do you have any brewing regrets?
A few, but then again…..

What was last beer you drank?
Bierifico Lambrate : Imperial Ghisa, stunning.

What is your favourite hop?
East Kent Goldings

What is your brewing ambition?
To get a holiday.

Do you have a Brewing hero/inspiration?
Frank Boon

Which beer do you wish you had brewed?
Orval

Favourite hobby outside of brewing?
Playing football and beachrunning.

If you had one superpower what would it be?
To play like Stanley Matthews.

Anything else you want to tell us?
Yes. Sorry it took me 2 months to complete this.

Thanks to Eddie for taking time out to complete this, I know he is a very busy man. You can visit the Gadds website here, follow Eddie on twitter here or join their facebook group here. You can also read my thoughts on Gadds beers here.

Gadds Black Pearl

Black Pearl weigh’s in at 6.2% and according to Gadds, Black pearl “Pours with a tight & light tan head and gorgeous near-black body. Roasty aroma, creamy roasty/chocco/mocco fruitless flavour & rich mouthfeel. Bitterness lasts and lasts. Begs for more.. and gets it!”

I’m not going to disagree with any of that, apart from the head which was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, not that I am complaining as it gave it a lovely look in the glass.

The aromas were of coffee, roasted malt and little bits of dark chocolate with just a touch of sweetness.

The beer is packed full of flavour, the most prominent ones being of roast malt and coffee, you then get hints of chocolate and a lovely dry bitter hoppy finish. There wasn’t really any hint of the alcohol that you would possibly expect from a 6.2% beer but this just made it really drinkable, in fact it was drinkable enough to come in a 500ml bottle and still leave you wanting more.

This is a beer I will be buying again soon, provided I can find it, it seems that at the moment no where has any stock, but once again I find my self saying Eddie and Co : I salute you.

You can read Gadds blog post about Black pearl here or check out Ramsgate brewery on twitter and also Eddie Gadd on twitter or visit the Gadds website here

Gadds of Ramsgate No.3

The main thing that attracted me to this ale was actually the description on the website.

The bottle conditioned version of the excellent no 3. Brewed using English malt and hops. Magnificent aftertaste combining the malt and hops. Eddie Gadd brews a great range of real ales, locally distributed around Ramsgate, but with a calling from far further afield.  Complex aroma but predominantly hoppy. Crystal clear when poured, amber coloured with small head. The hoppiness continues into the taste. A very good drinking beer

Eddie numbers his beers according to how many pints it takes him to feel very merry.

Firstly i love English Ale, it doesn’t get the credit it deserves,  possibly because there are too many similar ones kicking around the supermarkets, secondly i like to support the smaller breweries, in this case Ramsgate where Gadds is brewed and finally i love hoppy and drinkable beers, the description on the site ticked all of the boxes.

I particularly liked the line about Eddie numbering the beers according to how merry he gets, even if it’s not true its a great little story.

Anyway onto the beer, It comes in a rather nice tall bottle with simple branding (which i like), it opened with a nice little bit of a hiss, which is always satisfying with bottle conditioned ale.

The bottle suggests a couple of different ways of pouring, one of which was into a Gadds pint glass, which unfortunately i don’t have, shame really as they look really cool, i just went for the straight pour it into a glass, yeast and all,  Even after pouring the entire contents of the bottle into my glass  the beer was still a lovely clear dark golden colour with a good sized pale white head,

The main aromas i got were sweet caramel, hops and a hint of yeast coming from the fact it was bottle conditioned. The caramel and hops transferred into the flavour, the dominant flavour being the hops, with a floral hint and some malty caramel thrown in for good measure.

No.3 was really well balanced and felt great on my tongue, it made the edges tingle and that made me crave more.

I was actually pretty gutted i reached the bottom of the bottle so quickly, I’d only ordered one bottle and that was a huge mistake, the spiel on the website was correct, it is a very drinkable beer, in fact is Gadds No.3 is one of the most drinkable beers i have tried, it’s a proper English hop bomb made in the heart of Kent, and for that Eddie and Co – I salute you.

Check out Ramsgate brewery on twitter and also Eddie Gadd on twitter