Bristol’s craft brewers are constantly experimenting – mixing patterns to create something new. Over the years I’ve been fortunate to facilitate workshops for teams from local breweries, which has given me some insight into their creative work.

This flair for invention shines through in the descriptions of their attention-grabbing brews: espresso martini stout; gluten-free pale ale; or even key lime pie IPA. Each of these is a fusion of existing patterns to create something that sounds fresh. 

But there are other versions of this creative process at play beyond mixing unusual flavour combinations.

Forwards to the past

Another mode of creation is to bring back something from the past and make it fashionable again. 

A recent trend is for craft brewers to resurrect from obscurity the ‘mild’, a largely forgotten-about old-man beer. Here the mix is to take a pattern from the past and put it into the pattern of the modern-day tap room.

Continuous remixing

Sometimes, the creative mode is to continuously evolve and update an existing product. 

When I arrived in Bristol 6 years ago brewers Wiper and True ran a beer called Quintet, which was intended to be a continuously evolving blend of five hops chosen on the basis of seasonal availability. With each creative step, the existing blend of hops is one pattern, the new hop is the other pattern and the new mix is the new pattern.

Creatively staying the same

Finally, there is a mode of creation that aims to keep things the same. 

Many microbreweries strive to have a core beer that they can sell to the supermarkets. The large orders that the supermarkets make  give these small businesses a reliable revenue stream that enables them to grow. But one thing these large retailers don’t want is for the product to change. 

So if a brewery wants to introduce new processes for reducing the carbon footprint of their core beer, they have to do so in a way that doesn’t change the product. In this case, they might have to change their pattern of ingredients and pattern of brewing with the aim of creating something that was the same as before.

In these examples we have seen four creative modes:

  • Mixing previously unconnected patterns. 
  • Mixing patterns of past and present. 
  • Continuously remixing to update the present. 
  • Or creating new mixtures that keep things the same.

Whether we are fermenting or cementing, the key to creativity is pattern mixing.