Another Planet Brewing. ENGLISH.

Another Planet Brewing is a British-Spanish brewery that has been brewing beer in Torre Pacheco for some months now. Thanks to mutual friends I met Laurence Campbell, brewer and founder of the brand, and some weeks ago I had the chance to visit his brewery, taste his beers, have a chat with him and get to know a little bit better the project behind Another Planet Brewing.

Laurence told us that he started homebrewing 7 years ago in England. Around 3 years ago he, together with his wife, bought a house in our region, and when he retired from his previous job in England they decided to settle here and try to find their place in south-eastern Spain, brewing personal beers with a British touch. For the installation of his brewing kit he trusted on the British company PBC Brewing Installations. This is a Facebook photography of the day the kit was delivered from the UK, the first time I heard about Another Planet.

Super big day today for Another Planet Brewing. Lots of big shiny vessels. Monday is install day...

Once inside the brewery I could admire the shining kit. It is a 8 Barrel brewery, around 1,300 litres, with a 12 Barrel mash tun, 2,000 litres, Laurence decided to add an oversized vessel to be able to brew stronger, fully malt loaded beers. The kit has not only a hot liquor tank, but also a cold liquor tank, to fight the high water temperature in Torre Pacheco most of the year. After the mash and the boil he uses a whirpool pump to integrate hop flavour and aroma more efficiently and to concentrate sediments in the middle of the kettle and obtain a cleaner wort. Once finished that process he pumps the wort to one of his four fermenters and beer ferments and ages till bottling time. Before doing so Laurence filters his beer using three filters, 10, 5  and 0.35 microns each. After that process, the beer is practically sterile and very stable. He is very concerned about the high temperatures in our region and

about the fact that the handling of the beer from the part of some distributors and bar owners is not the best, and the cold chain is not always respected. Filtering takes away some hops flavour and aroma, and Laurence scales his recipes to counteract that effect and in exchange he gets 10 months of total stablity of his product.

After talking about his brewing process we tried his beers so that I could get an idea of what we were talking about. In his website http://www.anotherplanetbrewing.com you can see the beers that they have on sale, and some references they will brew in the future, all of them Laurence's recipes. I tried four of them, the first one Space Doxy is a golden ale with a 5,4% ABV, refreshing and rich, with a very nice noble hops aroma, floral and spicy. A hint of malty sweetness in the front with a final bitter and dry sensation. Blonde, flavourful, bitter and dry,  a thirst quencher, the classical definition of beer.

Time Machine Best, an English best bitter with 4,2% ABV. Caramel and malty aroma with a notable presence of cereal. A soft velvety mouthfeel and a bitter flavour reminds me a traditional English bitter with more hops, with a very refreshing ending which makes of it an easy-drinker.

Abduction IPA, 5% session IPA. Soft herbal and citrusy aroma given by some American C-hops, Cascade, Chinook and Columbus. A very balanced beer with a malty flavour in the front, Maris Otter malt fills your mouth after a sip, and a long grapefruit and peach aftertaste. 

Laurence uses Crip malts for all his brews, he thinks that they work beautifully English style malts, and the malty presence in this beer confirms that.

Jedi Force Amber, American amber ale, 5,5% ABV. A complex aroma, raisins, toffee, herbal and floral, and tons of flavour, a bit sweet, nutty and a little bit roasted; everything balanced with a good amount of Admiral hops. A very good brew, this Jedi Force, lots of malts and hops and strong flavour with a dry finish. At Beerchena, where Another Planet had a stand, this was the beer people enjoyed the most, even though this is not a particularly popular style in this region.

All the beers that I could taste from Another Planet Brewing are balanced and flavourful. They are filtered, something that some people may not like, I personally think that it fits really well certain styles. That makes the beers not have a very intense aroma, and maybe the one where it is more evident is the Abduction IPA. In that sense even though some of Laurence's beers are American styles and are brewed with American hops, they follow a British tradition of flavourful but subtile beers. Beer that is out of this world, brewed in Spain by Earthlings. Beer brewed in Murcia by an English man, who has brought his own ways. As an example of that, he has made an important investment to buy his own personalized taps, to get them installed in bars, good for him. The craft beer scene is becoming a tough world, where the big fish eats the small one and without any doubt you have to go big, and Laurence and Katherine are going for it. Good luck, and may the force be with you guys. Cheers!.