Wishbone Brewery – Keighley, Yorkshire, UK

Once upon a time in a land far far away a guy thought it was a good idea to start a Microbrewery, to make good beers without the constraints of a bigger business holding back creativity. That was the game plan, make nice stuff, sell nice stuff.

It’s a lovely idea isn’t it!

Overheads are killing us and there is always shed loads to spend on things each month, nothing is cheap!
Water used to cost 3x less.
Electricity has more than doubled.
Wages have gone up along with the National Insurance payments.
Rent, Rates, Insurance, running maintenance, it all adds up.

March last year was pretty dire, this year we’ve got less in the bank than back then. Weirdly this year has felt relatively ok but clearly it’s not, nothing is easy with the pressures on hospitality and everyone’s personal finances.

So what to do?!

We’ve always tried to do any price increases once a year in January so that customers know where they stand for the next 12 months, but right now something has to change so we will be adding a small extra amount, we are looking at £2 more per Firkin / Keykeg which works out less that 3p per pint on Cask.

And our brewery bar pint prices are going to have to go up, we put more of a structure in place for pint pricing earlier this year when we got all new Handpulls so you will have already noticed some changes to pint prices on some beers. From now on you’ll see more £4 Cask Pints but we’ll still have an occasional beer we can keep at £3 (mostly the Blondes), Lagers and other keg beers will be approx £1 more than before.

We would ask that our payment terms are adhered to, 30 days means 30 days and Invoices should be paid within this term, we may reduce these terms to to 20 days for all customers that currently make use of them to try and keep our cash flow going!

Cheers for reading and thanks for your custom, its always appreciated.
Adrian, Emma, Paul & Rob.

Hello and welcome to another edition of “Whats brewing / Brewed?”

First off, we hope to see you all that the Taste:BD event this Saturday and Sunday in the centre of Bradford – https://www.visitbradford.com/whats-on/taste-bd-p1902071
Centenary Square (Drinks & DJs)
Saturday 24th May: 12:00-21:00
Sunday 25th May: 12:00-21:00
We’ll be bringing; Tiller Pin Session Pale, Loco Choco Lime Fruity Pale, Tiny Pixie Gluten Free Session IPA, Blacksmith Porter, Orange Cats IPA & Teuton Lager.

Teuton Lager – 4% Hopped with Traditional German Tettnang, a classic lager hop. This brew we have used different product on it to remove haze (In theory replace us having to make an addition of Finings Adjunct into a tank full of carbonated beer). We will know on Saturday if the new stuff ‘Brewty’ has done its job, I think we may have had a secondary benefit too because the beer tastes to have stepped up a notch and was absolutely great tasting while I was kegging it. Unfined & Vegan, May or may not serve with a haze. Available to order now.

Amber Rambler – 5.5% Brewed in collaboration with The Beer Shack & Georgonzola in Clitheroe for first pours at Clitheroe Beer Festival, its got a lovely malt base of Maris otter and a blend of Crystal malts the hops and dry hopping work wonderfully on this malt base and the Simcoe, Chinook & Citra work really well in this American hopped Amber. Fined and Clear in Cask and Unfined and Vegan in keykeg. Available to order now.

Beat-Herder – 3.9% This beers is like the warm-up act, we’ll be taking lots of beer over the Lancashire border (Bandit Country!) to the Beat-Herder festival 17th to 20th July. So we thought let’s do a bit of a preamble and promo ahead of time and we’ve tweaked our Everyday Carry pale into a little session IPA. Unfined, Hazy & Vegan, available very soon in Cask and just a few Keykegs.

Rubix Cube – 4.5% brewing this week so available in a couple of weeks, this Sabro & Motueka hopped pale is a reet summer refresher with its tropical flavours. Dry Hopped, Unfined, Hazy & Vegan.

Also hope to see you all at our next Brewery Tap Day on Saturday 31st May, just a couple of weeks away.

Its time for another run-down of whats brewing or is newly in cask or keg….

We have just been brewing a collab beer that will get its first pours are Clitheroe Beer Festival, we teamed up with Georgonzola and The Beer Shack and we’re brewing an American Amber 5.5% it will be fined and Clear for maximum amberness if that’s a word?! Hopped with US-stables Citra, Simcoe & Chinook on a malt background of Maris Otter, Extra Pale, Wheat, Caramalt and Dark Crystal.

Everyday Carry – 3.9% Pale Ale hopped with Mosaic, Hallertau Blanc & Cascade, we’ve already had load of great feedback on this recipe by Rob, its proper Quaffable pint after pint. Available in Cask right now. Fined & Clear.

Blacksmith Porter – 5% traditional style Porter with Maris Otter, Brown Malt, Wheat Malt, German Beechwood smoked Rauch malt, Pale Chocolate malt and Black Malt, with just a bittering addition of hops for balance. Its quite a lush pint with the smoke being subtle and blending amazingly well with the roasted malts, definitely one for the dark beer lovers. Unfined, vegan and as dark as black cat in a coal cellar! Available in Cask and Keykeg now.

Hey Bert – 3.9% is back in stock and tasting really good with its Jarrylo hopping. Available in Cask to order now. Fined & Clear.

Constructivist – 4% Dry Hopped session IPA, hopped with e blend of Australian Galaxy, American Ekuanot & Citra, fermented with the Verdant yeast strain for maximum haze. Available in Cask & Keykeg now. Unfined, Vegan and Hazy.

Gaggle – 4.6% Lager brewed with German Carahell malt and a fruity-character lager yeast, Hopped with Lubelski and Bobek. Available in Keykeg now. Unfined & Vegan, serves clear drinks just as well with a bit of haze. Find this at the Fox & Goose in Hebden Bridge.

Contact us in all the usual ways to order, thanks

Our next brewery bar day is Saturday 31st May 12 til 7pm, we will have the usual 6-handpulls and 4-keg Taps.

All the usual things, we are family and dog friendly, keep your kids on their leads and your dogs under control, or words to that effect!
We have sloped and level access but our toilet facilities may not be suitable for those less able.

We’re having Kang’s Punjabi Box doing the food.

Hope to see you all again soon. Cheers 🙂

Our next Brewery Bar Day is Saturday 26th April 12 til 7pm.

And gosh darn it we are clashing with Haworth Beer festival which runs from Friday 25th to Sunday 27th at the Old School Rooms in Haworth, You can get your tickets here. You can find our Bar up there along with other beer lovelies like Ossett, Salt, Amity, Vocation, Bini and Goose Eye, along with Cocktails and wines from The Burnt Bear.

If you happen to be passing us after you’ve been to gig about to some DJ’s or Bands up at Haworth we’d really love you to come have a lazy pint with us on Saturday.

Back to ours…..

We’ll be having Loaf ‘n Loaded (the new name for End of the Line from Ilkley) doing the food.

We will have the usual 6 Handpulled and 4 kegged beers, including our new Session Pale ‘Everyday Carry’ 3.9% and ‘Blacksmith Porter’ 5%.

All the usual things, we are family and dog friendly, keep your kids on their leads and your dogs under control, or words to that effect!
We have sloped and level access but our toilet facilities may not be suitable for those less able.

Hope to see you all again soon. Cheers 🙂

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the recent beers we’ve brewed… be sure to check our sales emails for current offers you can sign up to them here.

Loco Choco Lime – 4% Pale ale brewed with Lime Zest, Cacao Nibs and Powder, hopping comes from Savinjski Goldings and Celeia building the lime and citrus character from the hops. The lime come through first with a background of Chocolate on the palate in the finish in this refreshing sessionable pale. Fined & probably clear!

Tiny Pixie – 4.2% Gluten Free Session IPA, hopped and dry-hopped with Citra, Mosaic & Simcoe all from America. Test samples get sent away everytime we brew a gluten free beer so we are assured of their Gluten Free status before release. This beer is in tank now and will be available in approx 2 weeks in Cask & keykeg. Unfined, Hazy & Vegan.

Here’s the last blog update of other recent beers, we always have a good core-range of beers in stock too (Tiller Pin, Blonde, Citra Blonde, Drover Session Bitter, Keighley Bitter, Abyss Stout etc etc).

Hello there lovely beer people, could we interest you in some tasty beers?

With small breweries feeling the pain, and investments groups buying up other brewers from administration, now is the time to buy beers not brands.
We always wanted to do something small, stay small and just make nice beers, that is becoming increasingly harder these days with the bigger brewers undercutting the smaller since the beer duty changes a couple of years back which gave everyone that could already afford it a pay rise. Yeah us small brewers did get a tiny benefit but we do not have the economy of scale of those brewers with a 20 or 30+BBL brew kit.

So yeah, support the small and ensure you buy truly independent beers, Cheers

The Black Imp – 9% Imperial Stout, we have a small amount of this beer in Pin casks, the rest of this brew has been set down in barrels for ageing. the recipe is based around our epic Black Porter (Pale, Brown, Wheat & Black malts) with additions of Dark Crystal malt and Dark Muscovado sugar. Unfined & Vegan.

Little Imp Mild – 4.5% This beer is from the second runnings of the Black Imp mash, a Parti-gyle brew, German & Polish hops and liquorice root powder make this beer very easy drinking and moreish. Available in Cask, Firkins & Pins. Fined & Clear.

Clog Iron – 6% Old Ale, brewed with Chevallier and Maris Otter malts, aged in second-fill French Red wine barrels between 25th April 2022 and 20th January 2025, our tasting notes are; On the nose – Fruity sweet toffee, in the mouth – red wine, Tanin, complex malt, wood. Available in Cask, Firkins & Pins and 30L keykegs. Unfined & Vegan.

Guji Session IPA 4% – Unfined, Vegan and Hazy – In tank again now, look out of it in Peacock Bingley, Peacock Bradford & Boar & Fable Bradford soon. Its a mash-up between the malt bill of Tiller Pin combined with the hopping of Tiny Pixie, and it tastes rather blooming nice. Available in Cask, Firkins & Pins, if you want it served from the Wood then get your backside to the Bingley Peacock!

Go **** Yourself – 4% This is our Charity lager in support of Ukraine, as when we brewed it before all our profit from the sale of this beer will go to good causes to help people in Ukraine. Its Klon 18 hops come from Ukraine too. Available now, please buy a 30L keykeg if you are able to, thanks. originally brewed with the folks from Bradford’s Ukrainian Club. Serves clear, Unfined & Vegan.

Citra Blonde – 3.4% Session Blonde with American Citra hops, massively easy drinking. Available in Cask, Firkins & Pins. Fined & Clear.

Nebula Haze – 5.2% IPA, In tank now, brewed with Ekuanot, Citra and 2 sexy-sounding experimental hops CF298 & CF299! It is dry hopped and uses the Verdant yeast strain for maximum haze and a boost to the tropical flavours of these hops. Unfined, & Vegan.

Drover Bitter – 3.9% British hopped Session Bitter, First Gold and Bramling Cross hops, traditional Maris otter malt with oats, crystal malt and a hint of Rye malt. Rob’s first recipe job here at wishbone was to re-jig the Drover recipe, it’s the same sheep of course! Available in Cask, Firkins & Pins. Fined & Clear.

We appreciate your orders, thanks for your continued support, Cheers

Our brewery bar will be open 12 til 7pm on Saturday 29th March, and we’ll be welcoming back Scho’s Doughs Pizza.
We will have our usual 6 Handpulled and 4 Keg beers, and some of DMC Brewery’s Ginger beer cans.

The usual things apply, we are family and dog friendly so keep your kids on leads and dogs under control, if you need a water bowl for your kinds just ask 😉
We have sloped and level access but out toilet facilities may not be suitable for those less able.

And here’s the Pizza Menu…

Hey its that time again!!

We would love you to join us for a few pints and some tasty food on Saturday 22nd February. We’ll be open as usual 12 til 7pm with the 6 Handpulled and 4 Keg beers.

Food will be from the guys at Hullabaloo in Shipley, menu below.

Here goes another honesty-bomb!

Ok so it doesn’t feel as doom and gloom as March 2024 but with the last 3 months of 2024 showing a month on month downturn and what feels like our worst January, it’s not our worst January as that was in 2021 but as with everyone out there all our major costs have gone up so the money we get to keep goes down and down.

This week is a weird one as I have no money to chase from customers, that doesn’t mean we aren’t owed money but it does mean there have been feck all sales in January!

It’s so obvious that people don’t have the money to spend when you compare our brewery bar takings over the last few years in January:
Jan 2023 – £2264
Jan 2024 – £1586
Jan 2025 – £1236
Take off the costs of a portable loo, the beers, electric, water and staff from all that and there’s not much left other than the goodwill of our amazing supporters.

Are we all thinking, is it really worth it trying to run a nice little business?

It makes us wonder if this is the cycle we are now stuck in, we get close to the bone, we tell people of the reality, people get us over the hump, and we make just enough until next year and rinse and repeat! This isn’t how life should work!

What we see is the beers getting most traction are from the breweries with the ability to charge less because they have the economy of scale. We repeatedly try to design recipes that we could charge less for and each time we find they end up costing the same as our Blonde beers to produce meaning the only way to produce a cheaper beer without screwing over our beer-ethics is the cut our already tight margin, look out for the first of these beers with ‘Hey Bert 3.9% Jarrylo Pale’.

If you are able, please support your small brewers and small businesses.

And we all lived happily ever after, NOT!