Oxford is a traditional English city that has produced great poets and thinkers. Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, JRR Tolkien and Dorothy L. Sayers are just a few of the brilliant minds who studied here and later earned fame and honor for their masterpieces. The prestigious university city is also the home of Ian Faulkner. Ian is not a writer, poet or playwright, however, but a philosopher. And a brewer, but more on that later.
So Ian's story began in Oxford, which he left to study philosophy in Manchester. After graduating, he moved to the lively metropolis of London, where he pursued his profession. However, when philosophy turned out to be a dead-end art, Ian decided to leave England and explore the planet. With big plans in his luggage, he turned his back on his home, only to end up in Berlin. His journey took him to Prague, where he fell in love with a German woman. He followed her to Berlin and, after a few years in the capital, ended up in Hamburg. The city on the Danube wrapped him around its finger with its charm and he began to feel at home there. If it hadn't been for the beer: as an Englishman, tasty ales are in Ian's blood, but a few years ago people in Hamburg drank almost exclusively pilsner. Because the craft beer movement was still in its infancy, Ian had to take the initiative himself and simply taught himself how to brew. He read stacks of books and dared to make his own first brews. His creations were well received and he set up the first small range together with a bar in St. Pauli. Little by little, more bars became interested in Ian's ales and he decided to give it a chance. Simian Ales was born and the fun could begin.
Today, the Brit with the good beer taste has established himself on the German market and his creations can no longer only be found in Hamburg's neighborhoods. Fine brews flow from the brewery with its own taproom in Elmshorn, covering the entire spectrum of the modern beer scene and with pale ale, lager, IPA and the occasional pilsner to suit the taste of all beer lovers. The name Simian comes from Ian's enthusiasm for monkeys: In English, the term simian refers to all monkey-like primates. And his own name is in it too!
