A Manx microbrewery has one of its beers feature in the latest collection of a popular beer subscription service.

Kaneen’s, based in Union Mills, is collaborating with London brewery Brew by Numbers to create a pale ale as part of Beer52’s ‘Celtic Nations’ edition monthly box.

Beer52 is one of the UK’s most popular craft beer clubs, and their beer and snack subscription service delivers beer from a new country each month for people to try, rate and review. Subscribers can earn points and rewards for critiquing the various craft beers.

When Kaneen’s was contacted by Beer52 to collaborate with Brew by Numbers, owner Peter Kaneen didn’t believe it and originally thought it was a scam.

He said: ‘They [Beer52] must have come up with the idea for the collaboration, and with the Isle of Man being one of the Celtic nations they must have been looking around social media pages, and stumbled upon our web page.

‘Their manager got in touch with me and said that it would be quite an interesting story to do a collaboration and at that point I thought this has got to be a scam.

‘I thought I’m definitely not giving them any credit card details!

‘I asked how much it was going to cost me and he said nothing, so I thought I’ll play him along and might as well go with it.

‘They got back in touch and from that we did a bit of research on what they are, Beer52, and it transpired that they’re absolutely massive in the postal market so from there they put us in touch with the head brewer of Brew by Numbers and they said they’re interested in our EPA (English pale ale).’

After working on cars for four decades, Mr Kaneen decided to pursue making a business out of brewing beer.

He said: ‘Six years ago I got really fed up of the motor trade, basically I didn’t enjoy fixing the modern car, they’re all computerised.

‘Being private and independent and not having any agencies, we were basically just spending and spending and not getting to the bottom of people’s problems.

‘So I fell out of love with the car industry and I’ve always been quite passionate about brewing.

‘It probably comes from the “white bucket brigade”.

‘Every one of my generation went down to Woolworth’s and picked up one of these kits and off you’d go with your white bucket and make five gallons of beer and it was happy days!

Kaneen’s is set up in the workshop on the site of the family-owned filling station at Union Mills, and the brewery has gone from strength to strength, with their beer often available at a range of pubs across the island, including The Railway in Union Mills, The Sidings in Castletown and The Whitehouse in Peel.

collaboration

The collaboration with Brew by Numbers saw Kaneen’s provide the recipe of their pale ale to the London based brewery, who brewed and canned it, leaving it to Beer52 to distribute across the UK.

Mr Kaneen explained the process.

He said: ‘The water on the Isle of Man is soft and London has hard water, so they have to change the water profile for our recipe that they’re making.

‘It’s easy enough, they’ll manage all of that.

‘Then they sort a few other bits along the way, and they brew 100 hectolitres [units of 100 litres] and they’re going to do two batches to fill this massive container.

‘The scale they’re talking about is mind-boggling.

‘From that, they brew it, and can it and the cans will have our company logo on.

‘I always say that whoever makes the beer then it’s their beer in the can but it is our recipe.’

Beer52 has almost 200,000 active subscribers, and members can order the Celtic nations collaboration beer now.

To sign up and try the ale you can go to: www.beer52.com/subscription.