Hartlepool brewery names musical beers in honour of Simple Minds, Kaiser Chiefs, The Smiths and more

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Brewery owners have named an album’s worth of beers after some of their favourite songs and groups.

All but one of Crafty Monkey Brewing Co’s 11 brews have a musical theme.

The Hartlepool brewery’s latest creation, Cemetery Gates, toasts the differently spelt Cemetry Gates by 1980s indie band The Smiths.

Other beers pay tribute to acts such as Simple Minds, Kaiser Chiefs, Depeche Mode, OMD, Heaven 17 and The Specials.

Crafty Monkey Brewing Company director Gary Olvanhill with the new Cemetery Gates beer, named in honour of The Smiths song Cemetry Gates.

Gary Olvanhill, who founded the brewery with Pat Garrett in 2018 after the pair took redundancy from the oil industry, said: “One of my hobbies is going all over the country watching gigs. It is my passion.

"We called our first beer New Era after the Specials song Dawning of a New Era because that is what it was for us, the dawning of a new era.

"After that we started to struggle with names so decided to keep on using song titles.

"We felt that something might stick in people’s subconscious even if they didn’t immediately know the song.”

Some of the other beers from Crafty Monkey Brewing Co which are named after songs.

Later examples include golden light ale New Gold Dream, which was the title track of a Simple Minds album, and ruby red ale Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, inspired by Kaiser Chiefs hit Ruby.

Gary, 55, said: “In one pub the customers have to sing Ruby, Ruby, Ruby before they get served.”

The one exception to the rule is Moneypenny, with Gary explaining: “It’s an English Pale Ale. So we thought English PA and then Miss Moneypenny, the James Bond character, because that’s what she is, an English PA.”

As for the story behind Cemetery Gates, Gary, a keen Smiths and Morrissey fan, said: “One of our pub customers twigged what we were doing and kept on saying you must do something by The Smiths or Morrissey.

"Cemetery Gates is a dark beer and I just had this vision of a smoked porter standing at some cemetery gates waiting to get in.”

And as for what comes next, Gary reveals: “We are thinking about something by The Jam. But it has to fit. The beer comes first and the song title second.”

Beers by Crafty Monkey, which is based in a converted outbuilding in Elwick, are available from its website at www.shop.craftymonkey.beer.

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