Liverpool and Ukraine beer collabs and tours are coming for Eurovision

Independent breweries in Liverpool and Ukraine have collaborated on eight new beers to celebrate Eurovision – and there’ll be tours to sample them all!

The idea for Beer Together, uniting the craft beer scenes from both countries, came from beer sommelier Sarah Hyde.

As one of around only 40 female accredited beer sommeliers in the world, she runs The Rambling Beer Co. in Liverpool which has been organising tours and tastings here since 2019.

When it was announced that the city had won the chance to host Eurovision on behalf of Ukraine, Sarah knew it was a great opportunity to put independent breweries in the international spotlight.

“I’m part of the Visit Liverpool groups and at the end of last year, I went along to their first meeting after it was announced Liverpool had got Eurovision when they were looking for ideas of how to make the city sparkle.

“One of the things I’m really passionate about when it comes to beer is the community focus side of it and historically how it’s brought people together.

“My initial thought was, what can I do to make sure Liverpool independent craft beer is on the map for this? A lot of these sort of events can be taken over by the big breweries and I didn’t want people coming to the city without being able to try locally-brewed beer.

“Realising the importance of the hosting for Ukraine, I knew that Ukraine has an amazing beer scene already. The motto of this year’s Eurovision is United by Music so I wanted to either try and get Ukrainian breweries into Liverpool or get some collaboration brews.”

Get the latest Eurovision news for Liverpool HERE.

Sarah discovered that it wouldn’t be possible to get beer out of Ukraine in any sort of volume, and also a lot of the brewers are men so while the war is on they’re not allowed to leave the country.

Instead, she decided to focus on collaboration beers, working with Ukrainian beer expert Lana Svitankova to make the Beer Together idea happen.

“Lana was part of a project just before the invasion that was trying to get a beer called Ukrainian Golden Ale, which has its own distinct flavour and ingredients, recognised as an official style,” explains Sarah. “She’s a beer writer who used to work for one of the biggest breweries in Ukraine called Varvar.”

Although independent brewers from both countries weren’t able to meet in person because of the conflict, they used social media to share ideas.

“We were able to do online collaborations, so the breweries connected through email or What’s App and the Ukrainian breweries have contributed recipe ideas and techniques, suggested ingredients and helped with logo and label design.”

Seven Liverpool breweries – including Love Lane, Strawberry Fields, Liverpool Brewing Co. and Black Lodge and Neptune – and one from London paired with eight from Ukraine to create the eight beers to celebrate Eurovision.

All eight will be on sale in the run-up to the contest at the Head of Steam pub on Hanover Street, which will be Beer Together’s hub, and Black Lodge Brewery in the Baltic Triangle.

Sarah will also be running special Eurovision independent beer events with The Rambling Beer Co. throughout the Eurovision period, from Friday May 5 to Sunday May 14.

There will be a daily one-hour beer tasting at Head of Steam from 12.30pm which will going through all eight beers, tasting a third of each, with an expert discussing the background of each one, the history of each style, the breweries, and everything tasters need to know.

Sarah will also lead a daily craft beer walking tour, from 1.30pm to 5pm, starting at the Head of Steam with four thirds, and moving along the waterfront to Carnival and Azvex, where there’ll be full brewery tours and more sampling.