The First & Last Brewery has marked 10-year milestone with an ambitious series of 10 unique collaborative and terroir-led beer releases.
The Bellingham, Northumberland-based brewery is celebrating a decade of independent brewing with its ‘10B410Y’ (10 Beers for 10 Years) project.
Co-founders Red and Sam Kellie have chosen to celebrate their anniversary by brewing 10 distinct, limited-edition beers throughout this year; each designed to honour the community, partnerships, and locally available ingredients that have defined the brewery’s first ten years.
The 10B410Y project brings those founding principles into the spotlight through unique collaborations, sustainable ingredients, and foraged wild fruits.
Commenting on the 10B410Y project, co-founder Red Kellie said: “Instead of having a one-off event, we wanted to celebrate our journey so far by developing 10 brand new beers, each of which explores our ethos and link to the things we value in life.
“Our community means so much to us. We wanted to actively involve people by brewing beer together, sharing the excitement of coming up with new beer ideas and looking forward to what we’re going to do next as a brewery.
“Caring for the world around us and reducing the impact of our business has always been important to us, hence the use of locally sourced, foraged ingredients and organic ingredients.”
Beers released so far include Honey, Honey (Amber) brewed using caramelised local honey from the Northumberland Honey Company, celebrating shared values of working alongside nature.
Parallel Flow (Extra Special Bitter) is a nitro ESB brewed with Stu Brew, and launched at Newcastle’s iconic Free Trade Inn.
While Embrace (Hazy Pale) was created as an International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day release with women from the local community and North East beer scene, featuring artwork by local artist FolkWood Designs.
The final three 10B410Y releases include an American Brown Ale brewed with members of the Craft Beer Newcastle community, and a beer to make the most of foraged Northumberland ingredients (brewed in collaboration with the Hepple Spirits Company.
Co-founder, Sam Kellie added: “10 Beers for 10 Years has been a really enjoyable project so far; we’ve had a lot of fun, and it has helped our wonderful, hardworking F&L team to take stock of how far we’ve come as a brewery, flex our creative muscles, and reflect deeply on why we do things the way we do. Here’s to the next 10 years!”
