https://www.thirstymoosebrewingco.com/

Thirsty Moose, Newcastle upon Tyne (2026)

01/09/2026

Last Thursday we had the pleasure of welcoming our local MP - Liz Twist - to our brewery.

The idea for this came from SIBA, who are driving the initiative to follow the great pubs of Scotland and ensure at least one guest beer tap per venue.

Why do we think this is important and worth our MP’s time?

A) The demand is there:

We’re restricted by pubs which are contractually locked into selling mainstream beer by the major breweries and pub groups which own them. Most of these are domiciled outside of the UK, meaning their profit margins flow far away from where these pints were sold.

If the public were happy drinking only mainstream beer, we’d be wasting our time, but that’s far from the case. SIBA reckon that demand for independently-made beer is 280% than our market share.

B) Something as natural and fundamental as beer should be made more by locals, for locals.

We believe that there still should be room for a family business to give their best shot at producing food or drink, because we’re sure that local people want to enjoy produce from their region. Meaning that oligopolies should be prevented, by law, from overly obstructing the market for locally-made produce.

A key downstream effect is that the economic benefits from local businesses thriving stay within the community.

Liz Twist listened and supported our case when we informed her of the current state of the industry.

We also informed her that a government review of the beer market has been written, and requested that this to be published.

CAMRA are calling for an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority on this too. Their own report - https://camra.org.uk/beer-report - is damming yet does a huge service to us little guys. We dearly hope that this can be the catalyst for the other 2 mentioned reports to be released.

Liz voted with her wallet and bought some of our beers - we humbly believe, that everyone else should too who cares about locally made, high quality beer. Chat to your pub’s manager or landlord, reach out to your MP, share the phenomenal stuff that’s coming out of CAMRA and SIBA, and let’s keep the momentum rolling on this.

Cheers,
Sam

21/08/2026

The August Pop up Pub is this evening!

Beers from yours truly, burgers from @ - quite frankly a dream combination!

17:30-22:00

Stay Loose, Drink Moose.

🫎

12/08/2026

Keep your eyes peeled for this absolute peach this August.

Stay Loose, Drink Moose.

🫎🤝🍑

10/08/2026

Join us this Sunday as we head just a few miles upstream and hang out at one of our very favourite, top tier pubs - Tyne Valley Tap Room

Both Max and Sam will be spending the afternoon talking through Thirsty Moose’s story, plus the stories and flavours behind each of the 5 beers we’ll be enjoying.

It has undoubtedly been one of the highlights of the year seeing the Tyne Valley Taproom open up and having Belta Blonde residing on their bar!

Sam and Emma have created such a lush space to relax and enjoy great beers - on their very first pub endeavour no less! Inside is cosy with its thick stone walls and rural paraphernalia - non better than the tractor panel sat right behind their keg lines! The courtyard outside is perfect for soaking up the rays too - so it’s perfect 12 months a year!

It’s well worth a visit if you’ve not made the trip before, and if you’re lucky enough to be a regular, this is a great chance to try some of our beers that haven’t yet graced the (exceptionally sturdy) glasses of TVT.

Tickets for the beer tasting are £15, and the event is expected to last around 2 hours. Pop either ourselves or TVT a message to book in, or just rock up on the day 😎

This is our idea of a perfect Sunday 🫎

Stay Loose, Drink Moose.

07/08/2026

And since we had to film our chat in landscape, here’s a separate post showing some of the many lessons and realisations I took from this chat:

1. He got the feedback loops going early by compiling a mailing list. This let him and the team create bespoke focus groups and informed them on key elements of the climbing space.
2. Before construction started, Matty and his friends & fam took lots of trips out to the best-known climbing walls around the UK to pick out everything that they wanted and didn’t want to have at the The Coliseum Bouldering Centre
3. Even for a venue as fantastic as the Coliseum, the early years of operating a business are still a massive test of your patience and faith that your product or service is going to continue to be well received by people, and that you’ll be rewarded for it in the long run.

Cheers folks, hope you enjoy! The link to the show is in our bio 🫎

07/08/2026

For the 6th Episode of Thirsty Musings, I go outside of the hospitality industry for the first time!

I had a great time chatting with Matty from The Coliseum Bouldering Centre , learning how his family’s business got up and running.

It was a complete accident how they stumbled across the premises, but how Matty and his team went from idea to reality is bloody impressive!

3 of the many lessons and realisations I took from this chat were:

1. He got the feedback loops going early by compiling a mailing list. This let him and the team create bespoke focus groups and informed them on key elements of the climbing space.
2. Before construction started, Matty and his friends & fam took lots of trips out to the best-known climbing walls around the UK to pick out everything that they wanted and didn’t want to have at the Coliseum.
3. Even for a venue as fantastic as the Coliseum, the early years of operating a business are still a massive test of your patience and faith that your product or service is going to continue to be well received by people, and that you’ll be rewarded for it in the long run.

If you’re considering starting a business, run a small, local business, or just generally love learning about personal growth I’d say this is well worth a listen, and/or sharing it with someone else too! The link to the show is in our bio :)

-

I’m going to take a pause in the podcast records for the rest of the busy summer months, and plan on picking it back up when I (and everyone else!) slows down a little in October. Learning about North East businesspeople (and how to converse with them!) is a genuine passion of mine, so I do wholeheartedly plan on picking these up again. In the meantime,

Stay Loose, Drink Moose.

05/08/2026

Pint Pouring ~ Peach Pales ~ Increasing Production Capacity ~ New Van (finally!)

Hey folks,

I cannot believeee I’m writing this in August! The last 2 months have been a blur. So much so that I couldn’t find the time to write June’s blog. The start of July, when I’d usually write about the previous month, fell between organising our 1st and 2nd Pop up Pub, which were about a week either side. So I figured that since I and everyone else is super busy during the summer, I’d go for a double blog in a month’s time.

And here we are. As mentioned, we’re 2 events into our Pop up Pub career and genuinely couldn’t be happier with how it’s started. There’s so much uncertainty going into your own events; the main one, of course, being who’s going to turn up. But there were also the questions of what food was going to be there, what other drinks (bar beer) would land best with customers, if and what music to play, how to promote it. Peak uncertainty struck about 30 mins before we were due to first open up, when God, in turn, opened up the heavens and unleashed and thunderous, black hailstorm upon us. Who’s going to walk along in this? Why would people try out a new event in this weather when they could get a Deliveroo at home and stay cosy? Has the Melted Bun food van flooded?

But no! The rain mercifully stopped and our first customers walked in 10 minutes before we were due to open. We couldn’t believe it! The flow of punters continued inwards as the rain flowed away, and by 7pm there was a queue of people waiting to get served, Matt Beresford was beginning his acoustic set, and the burgers were smelling immense - we were officially up and running! We’re very much looking forward to pulling many more pints and flying through the bottles of Vinho Verde in the months to come. The next Pop up Pub is on Friday the 21st of August :)

Our Thirsty Musings Podcasts continued to get released every 2 weeks, which made me very happy. I’ve listened to thousands of hours of podcasts of the years, so the appetite to make a few myself grew and grew. Having a good excuse to chat to friends in our industry is fantastic, and having the time to find out about how they’ve got to where they are is very fulfilling. If you listen and have the time to give it a review it'd be much appreciated.

A new release for July is our new peach pale ale: Peach to their Own. It’s our spin on the legendary demi-peche. Its earthy hop profile and peach essence, predictably, pair unbelievably well together. Look out some for funky social media posts on this in August.

July marked a significant milestone in Thirsty Moose’s history - our very first production capacity increase! This was thanks to getting a new 1500 litre fermentation/conditioning tank plumbed in, with its cooling system working like an absolute dream during these mega-hot temperatures we’ve had this summer. This means we can now have 4 beers brewing simultaneously.

The sunshine may have made the brewing side of beer a little harder, but it certainly didn’t hinder the drinking side of it! Myself and Max were down at the phenomenal Ponteland and Tynedale Beer festivals pouring pints of our beers and chatting to people new to Thirsty Moose and those who like to keep an eye out for us. To be frank, sharing and enjoying our beers with folks in the sunshine at these fabulous venues is utterly joyous, and one of the best parts of what we do. We’ll be continuing the fun times at Whitley Bay Beer Festival on the August bank holiday weekend, and many more festivals I’m sure.

And finally, at very long last, we’ve had sourced and bought a new van! It proved a challenge for us, not least because of how busy we were but because of how vans there are out there that fit our criteria. It had to be electric; we want to reduce our CO2 emissions, and would rather power our business using renewable energy sources, of which the national grid receives an ever-increasing proportion of its energy from. On top of that, it had to be up to carrying its precious cargo. Yes we wanted it to be able to carry more casks, but crucially, it had to be able to fit Max and his twins in the front when the school run begins in September. So this little beauty of a Toyota Proace is what we’ve landed on:

Name tbd; open to suggestions.

Onwards and upwards,

Sam

Stay Loose, Drink Moose.

30/07/2026

THE FULL MOUNTIE; a flamboyantly floral pilsner. Crisp, dry, and well worth tracking down.

Out in the wild at:
📍 , Morpeth
📍 hazy daze bottle shop, Whitley Bay
📍 The Rare Drop, Low Fell
📍 Rehill's of Jesmond, Jesmond
📍 Northumbrian Gifts, Ashington
📍 Wobbly Aleways, Central Station

Tag us with so we can see how far you’ve gone!

Stay Loose, Drink Moose. 🫎

16/07/2026

July’s Pop up Pub was just delightful!

Thank you so much to everyone who came along last Friday to drink our beers, soak up the rays of midsummer sunshine, and scran the 10/10 burgers provided by

makes for such a fantastic venue, especially when we get the tables set up outside and get the ice cold pints flowing - the bowls players enjoyed our company too!

We can’t wait for the August edition :)

Stay Loose, Drink Moose.

09/07/2026

Pints like this and a forecast like that??? 🤤

Of course, the big one is on Saturday, but to pass up on the opportunity of a few cold, Blaydon-brewed pints in the sun? Scandalous.

On top of the great beer, we’ve got loads of luscious spirits made by fellow local artisans, and a fridge full of Chin Chin Vinho Verde.

Plus there’s AF beer from and loads of soft drinks for the whole family to enjoy.

So join us tomorrow for a few drinks to round off another brilliant week of sunshine at alongside

17:30-22:00

Thirsty Moose

01/09/2026

21/08/2026

12/08/2026

10/08/2026

07/08/2026

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30/07/2026

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