Intervista a… Collective Arts Brewing!

Chiunque si sia mai avvicinato al mondo della birra artigianale sa che non è soltanto un passione fine a sé stessa.

La birra artigianale è sinonimo di convivialità, confronto, nuove amicizie e conoscenze in tutto il mondo, oltre che in alcuni casi anche beneficenza, socialità e cultura.

Da quando ci siamo appassionati a questo mondo abbiamo incontrato numerosi birrifici con moltissimi scopi degni di nota che vanno aldilà del solo produrre ottima birra. Fa parte di questo gruppo (e per questo merita un’intervista!) il birrificio canadese Collective Arts Brewing.

Cosa differenzia questo birrificio dalle migliaia di altri sparsi in tutto il pianeta?

Il fortissimo legame con l’arte!

In 7 anni di vita Collective Arts Brewing ha collaborato con oltre 2000 artisti provenienti da 40 paesi e 6 continenti diversi.

Con ben 170 dipendenti e 3 birrifici/tap room (Hamilton, Toronto e Brooklyn) il progetto è in forte crescita, come dimostra la loro voglia di conquistare l’Europa!

Un così importante progetto ha bisogno di essere raccontato da qualcuno che ne fa parte. Per questo abbiamo intervistato Katie Lenton (C.A.B. Manager, International Marketing & Events) che ha gentilmente risposto alle nostre domande. 

Hi Katie, nice to meet you! A fundamental value that distinguishes you from the many breweries around the world is your connection with art. Do you want to tell us more about your project?

Collective Arts Brewing is a craft brewery in Hamilton (Ontario, Canada), founded by Matt Johnston and Bob Russell. It is a grassroots brewery that aims to fuse the creativity of craft beer with the inspired talents of emerging artists and musicians.

Collective Arts Brewing was founded on two beliefs: The first that creativity fuels creativity. And the second, that creativity yields delicious pints. We feature limited-edition works of art on our beer cans and labels, and we work to make sure the liquid on the inside is as diverse and creative as the artists we profile.

Yours is also an outspoken fight against discrimination, whether it’s of sex, religion, skin color or social class. How much can the world of beer play its part in these social struggles, unfortunately on the agenda?

We believe that the craft beer industry (and all industries) has a role to play in making the world a better place. The industry has the people, the passion and the quality products to be a leader in setting the stage for inclusivity among the workplace. Collective Arts believes that creativity can make the world a better place but creativity can not live without diversity and equality.

Creativity is at it’s best when different perspectives are heard. Making beer has given us a platform which we understand and appreciate isn’t a privilege everyone gets to enjoy and our aim is to provoke challenging topics and create a space and awareness for groups that are too often left in the margins.

Artists from all over the world gathered to give life to cans with unique, original graphics … true works of art! Are you also inspired by graphics to create new beers?

We believe creativity fuels creativity. We’ve worked with 2000 artists from over 40 countries around the globe and that’s what drives our team’s passion.

Since we began brewing beer in 2013, we have been inspired by brewers, artists, musicians, chefs and all creatives to keep pushing the boundaries of what Collective Arts can do.

We have recently launched a range of innovative, artisanal gins, sparkling cocktails, and hard tea seltzers. We’ve also worked with some artists from some of the best coffee growing regions on our inaugural line of coffee beans!

Let’s talk about beer. Your production is very varied: Sour, IPA, Porter, Imperial Stout … there is plenty of choice! In which styles do you really feel among the best?

When it comes to innovation, our brewing team lives by the mantra ‘we are inspired by tradition by not constrained by it.‘ While our brewmaster is likely known for his IPAs that are chalk full of hops, our sour series and one- off, small batches are all part of the family and we’re really proud of them all.

Have you ever made some collaborations with other big breweries? Which do you remember with great pleasure?

Collaboration is in our DNA. We’ve been lucky to travel the world and meet and collaborate with some of the world’s best brewers. Since our first collab in 2017 with KEX out of Iceland, to our festival collabs with the likes of JING-A in China – we are constantly inspired by and are grateful for the friends we’ve made through our brewing collabs.

Not only beer, but also spirits, cocktails and ciders. Are these just an alternative to beer or products on which you bet a lot?

We want to be a disruptive brand in all categories of beverages and expand our creativity wherever we can. We began with cider as it is the closest companion to beer and then with the launch of gin, it allowed us to expand and explore into the spirits space and created a world of possibilities with various cocktails.

Distilling has actually been part of the dream from the very beginning and we focused on gins to start as they are a kindred spirit to craft beer; they are all about the creativity and the quality of the ingredients. Like Craft beer we can play and produce limited releases to push the limits of what gin can, and should be.

We’re excited to expand into other categories, most recently we launched Bitters to accompany our gin and cocktails!

By now you are expanding all over the world, you have come to deliver throughout Europe and recently also in Italy. You have 3 taprooms in Hamilton, Toronto and Brooklyn, NY. What projects do you have in the near future? A taproom in our beautiful Venice?!

Having worked with artists from around the world – we want to be everywhere they are. We dream of seeing Collective Arts in the most creative city centres around the globe so that the artists we work with can truly partake in our vision of ‘creativity fuels creativity’.

So, never say never!

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Ringraziamo Katie per la disponibilità ed il tempo a noi dedicato. È stato un piacere conoscere un progetto di successo mondiale che sta sempre di più espandendosi ed avendo successo.

Dare spazio e visibilità agli artisti a creare, attraverso la birra, una grande comunità di creativi del mondo: può solo che essere una grande idea!

E ricordate cari birrifici: anche l’occhio vuole la sua parte!

PROMO

Ti è venuta voglia di provare le birre di Collective Arts Brewing? Visita il sito https://collectiveartseurope.com/ ed utilizza il codice CASHIP, la spedizione sul tuo primo ordine è gratuita!

PROMO

Did you want to try Collective Arts Brewing beers?
Visit the website https://collectiveartseurope.com/ and use the CASHIP code, shipping on your first order is free!

Per saperne di più scriveteci un commento a questo articolo o contattateci tramite il nostro form Contatti, saremo lieti di mettervi in contatto con loro.

Seguite Collective Arts Brewing e Collective Arts Europe su Instagram per tutte le novità e visitate il loro sito per maggiori informazioni sul loro birrificio https://collectiveartseurope.com/

• Foto copertina – Credit: Sunday Afternoon US
• Foto Team/Birrificio – Credit: Canadian Business / Brewers Journal Canada