Rooster’s Brewing Co. is celebrating a decade of their flagship IPA, Baby-Faced Assassin, being commercially available with Waitrose becoming the latest major retailer to add the international award-winning beer to their range of 440ml cans.
Baby-Faced Assassin was first brewed as a hobby homebrew recipe by Rooster’s Commercial Director, Tom Fozard in 2011, while he was working at a local specialist beer shop in Leeds and gained some notoriety among fellow enthusiasts within the then burgeoning beer blogging scene. Later the same year, Tom, alongside twin brother Oliver, now Rooster’s Head Brewer, joined Rooster’s as part of an eventual change of ownership spearheaded by his father, Ian.
A trial batch of the beer was first brewed under the Rooster’s banner in 2012 and yielded a handful of 750ml sharing bottles that were showcased at the European Beer Bloggers Conference the same year and ultimately laid the foundation for its commercial release and unimaginable success a year later.
The Fozard twins had resisted calls to re-brew the beer, as they focused on other projects, but eventually bowed to public pressure and Tom’s original 25-litre batch recipe was passed to Oliver to be up-scaled and tweaked in order to make it commercially viable to be brewed. The first commercial, cask-only batch of Baby-Faced Assassin was released as a one-off brew in November 2013 and eventually added to Rooster’s core range later in 2014.
Rooster’s was among the first breweries to invest in their own canning line in 2014 and launched three beers, including Baby-Faced Assassin to market in January 2015. This move further helped the beer to become one of Rooster’s standout beers in recent years in cask, keg and can, picking up multiple awards at festivals and competitions across the UK, as well as on the global stage at the International Brewing Awards in 2015, 2017 and 2021. Initially packed in 330ml cans, Baby-Faced Assassin is now available in 440ml ‘tallboy’ cans and, in October 2022, was selected by ASDA for nationwide distribution across a selection of their stores. Morrison’s, having stocked the beer in 330ml cans since 2018 made the switch up to 440ml in September and, as the brewery marks ten years since the release of the first commercial brew, Waitrose has become the latest major retailer to stock the beer, with a nationwide launch set to go live in store from November 6th.
Tom Fozard, Rooster’s Commercial Director, said: “Having first created Baby-Faced Assassin as a homebrew recipe back In 2011, I never could have imagined the success the beer would go on to enjoy in the years since. As a small, family-owned, independent brewery, we’re delighted to mark its 10th year of being a Rooster’s beer with the news of its continued success.”
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For further information, please contact Ian Fozard on ian@roosters.co.uk or 07957 371757.
Rooster’s Brewing Co. www.roosters.co.uk
Notes to Editors
About Rooster’s Brewing Company
Rooster’s Brewing Co. has always been an independent, family-run brewery, focussed on creating quality new world pale ales, with an emphasis on flavour and aroma.
It was established in 1993 by the pioneering brewer Sean Franklin, who developed a new style of beer that had, up to that point, never been tried in the UK before. At a time when most breweries were taking flavour out, Sean was trying to put more in, using imported flavourful hops from the west coast of America.
His pioneering and innovative approach began to turn heads, with Rooster’s flavour-packed beers standing out in a sea of brown beer – with its flagship pale ale, Yankee, leading the way. The awards began to pour in, with Rooster’s beers winning gold medals at the biggest and most renowned international and national beer awards.
Having won pretty much everything there was to win, in 2011 Sean decided to retire and chose to sell the brewery to Ian Fozard and his sons, Tom and Oliver, in a move that ensured Rooster’s would remain a family-owned brewery.
Ian has had an affinity with beer for over forty years, having been an active member of CAMRA since the 1970s and the founder of Market Town Taverns, which grew into a portfolio of 15 bars and pubs across Yorkshire.
Oliver, who has been brewing professionally since 2000, became the head brewer at Rooster’s, and Tom, also an active brewer, became the company’s commercial director. Oliver was awarded Brewer of the Year in December 2020 by the British Guild of Beer Writers.
In 2018, it became clear that Rooster’s was rapidly outgrowing its site in Knaresborough and in 2019 the decision was made to invest in a new state-of-the-art brewery and taproom. Finding the right location, that offered Rooster’s the opportunity to become part of the fabric of the local community wasn’t easy, but the team were delighted when the perfect space became available at Hornbeam Park in Harrogate. Over the course of 2019 and the early part of January 2020, the company created a bespoke, state-ofthe-art facility that it now calls home, in a move that saw it return to the town where Rooster’s was first started some twenty-seven years earlier.
For further information, please contact Ian Fozard on ian@roosters.co.uk or 07957 371757.
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