Update on Mari Family Series

Our “Mari” beers started way back in 2017, 2 years in, when we rolled out Mario at our taproom. We had made the decision to attempt this double IPA using Belgian yeast off the back of seeing how well our house yeast strain worked with hops. We talked about it a little in our core series refresh, but yeast itself tends to be treated as an important “house character” by many breweries in Belgium, and this means that the varieties used themselves have a lot to offer in terms of character. For this reason, Belgian IPAs have played a key part of our lineup since the beginning, when we made the choice to have our second core series being Ichii Senshin.

We felt our yeast meant that there was a lot more that we could do with this style, though. While many Belgian strains’ character can clash with hops, we are fortunate in that ours to our minds does the opposite. It has herb and spice complexity, but the yeast has high attenuation (leaves little sugar), keeping the beer dry, and avoiding it becoming cloying, and it also contributes lots of fruity esters, blurring the lines between the fruitiness of the hops and the yeast contribution.

Our release of Mario was surreal. We launched it in our taproom, and it was a hit. Too much of one, in fact! It was one of our busiest taproom dates to date at the time, and let’s just say people went for repeat pours at a dangerous rate for such a strong beer! From there, we made Mariko, the 6% “younger sister” to Mario, and then we eventually turned it into a full-blown series.

The craft beer industry moves fast, however, and what was fruity and impactful in 2017 can tend to feel tame now. Not only that, but the variety of beer that falls into the “IPA” style is quite ridiculous. One could easily argue that “IPA” is no longer a style but a collection of styles, and these different sub styles, and the large array of hop varieties and techniques applied to making IPAs, mean that there are many more sides to the “flavour wheel” than have ever existed before.

And so we feel it is time to update and refresh this series accordingly. While we were making some nice beers in the Mari Family series, we felt there was a lot more we could do, and many more sides to the so-called “flavour wheel” than we have previously looked to push.

So with no further ado, we look to share our planned characters for all our different Mari Family products.

We can’t wait to try these new Mari Family products ourselves, and to share them, and also felt it only fitting that we update the visual for these products, given that the beers are very different to what they once were. Given also that many of these products have had a visual “character” for some time, we decided to steer clear of having a figure, and instead have taken a design direction where the visual is based on giving hints as to the personality of the character.

Our first release is our revamped Mariko, and while she still veers on the tropical side, she is definitely becoming more outgoing! She’s also travelled a bit more, and her fruity character comes more from New Zealand now, whilst still taking a good dose of citrus and pine from America. Her character has also travelled from East to West, with her wheat-heavy profile being more East Coast-inspired and her crisp and dry finish being more akin to West Coast, and yet she remains very approachable. No wonder she’s such popular company!