Brewery Bio - Wild Card Brewery
From humble beginnings come great things and that is certainly true for one of our closest collaborators; Wild Card Brewery. The brainchild of co-founders William Harris and Andrew Birkby, Wild Card has evolved over the last 10 years to produce a stunning range of hand-crafted, premium beers, that we are proud to stock here at the Bier Company. We take a look at their story and uncover the reasons why we love working with them so much.
Wild Card Brewery Story
Andrew and William started their Wild Card brewing journey in 2012. It initially began as a hobby, producing small batches of beer at home, before quickly developing into a cuckoo brewing operation. Having developed a small range of delicious tasting beer the duo sought to upscale production and turn their hobby into the award-winning micro-brewing business it is today.
After some searching and negotiating, the friends set up brewing in the basement of a local Walthamstow pub. Before long demand was outstripping supply and the pub basement just simply wasn’t going to cut it. They soon realised that they needed a larger premises to call home and so the next search began. This time they brought best friend, Jaega Wise along for the ride. With her love of beer and expertise in chemical engineering she quickly found her place as head brewer and has subsequently been awarded the prestigious title of ‘Brewer of the Year’ by the British Guild of Beer Writers.
By 2014 the team was busy producing up to 8000 litres of craft beer a week from their new site at Ravenswood Industrial Estate in East London. With continued success and a lot of hard work, Wild Card Brewery went from strength-to-strength and by 2017 they had opened a second production facility in Lockwood, Walthamstow. The bulk of the production moved to the new site, which saw them massively increase capacity - up to 12,000+ litres in fact. The initial Ravenswood site became a designated tester site that head brewer Jaega could use to develop exciting new beer flavours. Moving to the new site allowed them to not only expand but ensured that the beer produced was consistently of the highest quality every time.
Today, Wild Card is a highly-established, award-winning, craft microbrewery with a team of eleven. It has two taprooms, both based in East London that are open to the public. They now have a core range of premium beers including a luscious 4.3% pale ale made with Citra, Ekuanot and Cascade hops, a 5.5% IPA which is dry hopped with Mosaic, Simcoe and Citra, and an unfiltered 4.4% Czech Pilsner lager which is fermented cold for 6 weeks. In addition Wild Card brings out exciting new special brews each month, as well as Bier Company exclusives. Using only the best of modern brewing technology and sustainably sourced ingredients they continue to produce exceptional craft beer year-after-year.
Why we love working with Wild Card Brewery
Here at the Bier Company, we love working with the Wild Card team. With exciting specials released every month, Wild Card continues to experiment, innovate and collaborate on some of the best craft beer the industry has to offer.
We love that they work closely with talented local and international artists to produce unique, intriguing and beautiful label art for each of their beers. What’s more, each beer uses only the highest-quality, seasonal and sustainable ingredients to ensure that it tastes and looks its best every time. In fact, we love them so much that they are responsible for brewing many of our Bier Company exclusive beers that you know and love.
Shop Wild Card Special Edition Craft Beer Box
Ready to taste some Wild Card beer? Look no further than the Wild Card Special Edition Craft Box. This stunning pack contains 8 different craft beers from across the Wild Card range, including beers brewed exclusively for Bier Company. With a fantastic mix of styles including; IPAs, NEIPAs and lager you’ll get to enjoy the best of this East London brew house.
Shop some of our favourite beer boxes below - each contains at least one Wild Card craft beer, along with a selection of other fantastic brews: