Newbarns Brewery has been high up on the list of dream collabs ever since they first emerged onto the UK craft beer scene back in 2019.

If you too are a part of this so-called ‘scene’, you’ll know that it’s small - most people know most people as most breweries know most breweries, and Newbarns and Pressure Drop are no exception.

We’ve been friends for many years, so it was a natural yes when co-owners Gordon, Emma and Freddie reached out to see if we could collectively rustle up something delicious. However, it’s not just friendship that draws us to this modern Scottish legend, but also the sheer brilliance of the beer they’ve been producing from their site in Leith, Edinburgh. With a portfolio of both traditional and more modern styles, they’ve carved a path for themselves in the craft world with their mostly eponymously named beers such as Super Gold Lager, IPA or Stout.

A particular favourite among the team here at Pressure Drop has been their most recent release, ‘Festbier’: a deliciously malty lager which is a true homage to the original German invention. As our owner and head brewer Ben puts it: when one thinks of Newbarns, one thinks of quality and minimum fuss, and in an industry where everyone is constantly trying to one up each other by making the whackiest beer they can, it’s refreshing to taste something that is classic but really, really well done.

Going into this collab, we wanted to brew something that reflected this modus operandi, so a porter seemed like the obvious choice. Traditional, dark, and autumnal, this style was inspired by later 19th century British porters designed for export to India, hence the name: Export India Porter. Our version stays true to the original recipe by Barclay Perkins and Whitbread, weighing in at 5.5% and providing those classic notes of coffee and cocoa, as well as being dark and rich in colour but light in body.

We used a mix of different malts (Marris Otter, brown malt, light and dark crystal, chocolate malt, black patent and roasted barley) to enhance that roasty-toasty aspect and provide the beer with its signature mahogany colour. We added the darkest malts after the mash stand but before the sparge to extract only the most desirable flavours, leaving any unwanted acrid polyphenols behind. As for hops, we selected the finest English-grown First Gold and Admiral, which deepened the complexity of the beer by mixing in notes of marmalade, citrus and resin.

This has been a marriage of minds, and technical stuff aside, we had the best day brewing together and bonding over our shared passion for the best swally around. We’re excited for you to taste this and hope you’ll pick up on the love we squeezed into it.

You’ll find Export India Porter on general sale from Monday 20^th October, but if you’re keen to jump the proverbial gun, it’ll be available on our online shop and pouring as a taproom exclusive both at our site here in Tottenham and up in sunny Leith at Newbarns from Friday 17^th.

Cheers!