T|E|H : Meet The Brewers – Piglove Brewing Co

Hello my fellow beer lovers,

Today we are having a chat with a couple of amazing guys called Marcos & Jesus from the PigLove Bew Co in Leeds! These guys have a hell of alot of passion, and they make some very interesting beers.

Hello Marcos & Jesus, thank you both for joining us today, can you please tell us a little about how Piglove Brewing Co came about and your ethos towards beer?

Upon the realisation of a shared passion for craft beers, Jesus and I started brewing at home, we always dreamt of having our own brewery. After a few years of hard work (brewing in our kitchen) and a little bit of luck, we managed to release our first beer to the public.

At Piglove all we do is driven by a strong desire to try new things. Our roots are based in South America but we have a great passion and admiration for the deep-rooted heritage of craft beer in the UK. Our goal is to bring the flavours from home mixed with bold ingredients to create the bravest beer possible.

As you are trying to merge both your own heritage and that of the British craft beer scene, I can imagine there has been quite an amount of experimentation in finding the correct balance of flavours, which is by no means easy at the best of times. What would you say was your most disastrous of experiments, and what flavours were involved in it?

It was quite difficult to be honest, but we never gave up and we learnt a lot during the process. For instance, we brewed Phantasticum Hop Healer with Chuchuhuasi (26 times) until we were happy with the flavour profile and the balance of the beer. After that, we improved our process and increased the searching time for new plants and herbs to match our style.

As you say you like to make eccentric beers, and the names of your beers certainly reflect this are there any interesting stories behind these names?

For us everything needs to have a purpose; from ingredients, beer names, series names, and art everything is linked together. 

MALOCA Series 

Maloca is a large communal house inhabited by the indigenous people of the Amazon. In a general sense it is also a traditional social unit, a type of dwelling whose symbolism represents the Amazonian communities. In other words, the Maloca is a divine archetype, the womb of the mother earth, the house of the sun and moon and the receptacle of the celestial ray.

‘Holy Cosmos’ represents the universal knowledge given by ancestral gods, ‘Rio Serpens’ represents the Anaconda and rivers from where the community make a living, ‘Shaman’s Dance’ represents a ritual performed by the community to teach the future generations and finally ‘Omnia’ represents the illumination of the community as a whole.

How do you choose which styles of beer to brew?

We like to represent a diverse variety of different styles in keeping with the Piglove ethos. We take the time to source original ingredients that will then influence which style we choose to brew with it, for example we wanted to use Grasshopper salts and felt these would most complement a Sour IPA. 

Do either of you have a favourite beer that you produce, and if so what do you like about it?

I, Marcos, love Phantasticum Hop Healer, I think the beer has an amazing and interesting flavour profile and the Chuchuhuasi makes it very distinctive and unique.

Jesus, he loves Rio Serpens (Camu camu gose) it is a very complex beer where you can taste every single layer of flavours and the camu camu berries are amazing to work with.

The illustrations on your products are fantastic, who is responsible for this design work?

Thank you, we think so too. Eduardo Buhrkohl is the artist responsible for all our current can/branding illustrations and PROCESSplay is responsible for all Graphic Design.

You can check out some of their work on Instagram @educhez and @processplay_design.

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Thank you, I will definitley check them out. Breweries around the UK, and the world are now making a lot of effort to be as eco-friendly as possible. How have you ensured that Piglove Brewing Co is environmentally friendly?

This is a important issue. 

In our Tap Room we use 100% recyclable plastic cups and recycle all waste, where possible. During the brewing process the spent grain is repurposed in local farms for animal consumption. We are currently working on a project which will allow us to eliminate all plastic in our packaging by using 100%
recyclable cardboard. 

Now 2020 & thus far 2021 have been terrible years for the hospitality and brewing industry. Despite this, what would you say was your biggest triumph over the last 12 months?

It has been a terrible year, but we are pretty sure it will get better soon, we are working very hard to get all our projects done. So far, we would say that buying our own equipment has been a dream come true. We are hoping to get it installed and running by the end of April.

A lot of brewers have recently been collaborating, if you were given the chance who would you like to do a collaboration with? And, what kind of beer do you think you would produce?

We would love to collaborate with any Yorkshire brewery and to brew a very traditional style like a strong bitter with our South American twist 

And finally, what can we expect to see next from Piglove Brewing Co?

This year for us is very important as we have a few big projects coming up including a new beer series which we hope to release in the Summer.

As well as working on getting a full premises licence for our taproom which would allow us to open every weekend!

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And that brings our little chat to a close, thank you both for taking the time to sit with us today and tell us about Piglove Brew Co. I for one cant wait to get myself booked in for a visit!

If you would like to purchase one of Piglove Brew Co’s Beers you can do so via their website here. They will be re-opening their doors on the 14th -18th of April, (Address: Unit 6, Cross green lane, LS9 8LJ, Leeds) and are currently taking bookings via contact@piglovebrewing.com.

Until then, I will be making my way through their wares for review, The first of which will be released Sunday, so keep your eyes peeled for that!