A couple of months ago I got what I thought was a spam email from a total stranger, one Usi Adjo, apparently in the North African country of Egypt.
Now as the better educated amongst you will know, some of the earliest brewing records were found in places like Babylon, Mesopotamia and Egypt and indeed the Sumarians used to export ale as far away as Egypt. Not far away in todays scheme of things but in those days it was a ‘bit of a trek’.
I ignored the initial email and cursed my laptops security for not sending the email straight to the junk mail box. End of that I thought and went back to my steadily growing pile of work.
A week or so later i got another email from the same person, there seemed to be a bit more urgency in the tone of the writing and so I actually read the content. Now comes the exciting bit so make sure you’re paying attention.
The content of the email was more than a little bit extraordinary. Apparently during the recent political turbulence in the area an underground brewery had been discovered and it was in use! The reason they were getting in contact with us was because they wanted some funding for their brewery so they would be able to export beers as soon as possible.
I took the email to Mike and Rich and they of course were intially as sceptical as me but once I persuaded them to contact the Egyptians they got a bit more excited. Here is where it gets really exciting though, the Egyptians head brewer had decided before they got in touch with us that this was never a worthwhile cause and left the brewery in the hands of complete amatuers.
So, anyone seen Eddie Baines recently? I haven’t. That’d be because instead of leaving the company we sent him over to Egypt to train the brewers over there at the Sphinx brewery. Yes I made this story up as a cover because too many people were asking questions as to where he was and we wanted to keep the news quiet for as long as possible.!
He’s taken a couple of pictures of the site for us and as you can see the brewery is very much subterranean. 
Ed, is apparently having the time of his life out in Egypt, and why not, they love a ginge over there!
So, look out for the beer on the bar in The Rake and Tap East in the next couple of months and we may even be auctioning some old bottles at the cage which were found in the underground brewery just before Eddie got there. We don’t want to rush this as we believe it’s got huge long term potential and needs to be dealt with as carefully as possible!
More info will be available as and when it comes in now so watch this space!
special beers from the world renowned Brooklyn Brewery! Even more special is that two of them are cask conditioned!
