From Sonoma to Manchester: Track Brewing’s Ride To Glory

As I stepped out from the winding path that runs alongside the picturesque Ashton canal in Manchester, I left behind the charming brick homes of Piccadilly Village and found myself strolling into a familiar sight—an industrial park.

Not a strange location for a brewery to those who remember the beginnings of the American craft brewing revolution, an industrial park is in stark contrast to the town villages and city squares of many historic European breweries.

But I wasn’t in the U.K. to visit a centuries-old brewery. One of the leading names driving Manchester’s rapidly growing craft beer scene, Track Brewing has carved out its place among the greats across all of Europe.

And in this little industrial hamlet right outside of Manchester, the tiny-brewery-that-could shows no signs of slowing down.

From Cycle Paths to Train Tracks

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

Stepping inside Track’s taproom, bursts of pastel colors on the walls greeted me. Sprawling wood-grained picnic tables and a jungle of lush greenery thrived in every nook. At the center, a dark green draft board boasted beers listed on Scrabble-like tiles nestled into rainbow-hued planks.

The taproom stopped me in my tracks…

Only a warm accent snapped me out of my reverie. “Hello, I’m Sam.”

The founder of Track Brewing, Sam Dyson, seems almost incongruous to the jaw-dropping surroundings. He’s soft-spoken, low-key, humble.

But Dyson is much like a locomotive—powerful, relentless, unstoppable.

Seventeen years ago, Dyson quit his job and decided to travel the world. The beer lover who had only experimented with homebrewing at university thought he’d start by visiting his uncle in San Francisco. But instead of flying to the West Coast as most people would, Dyson landed on the East Coast, leaving Virginia with just a tent, a backpack, and a bike.

“I had no expectations about the trip whatsoever, apart from it was going to take quite a long time,” said Dyson, who cycled across the entire United States in just around two hundred days. During the trip, Dyson met plenty of people, often chatting with locals about the best places to eat. Before long, the conversation seemed to shift more and more to where he could score some top-notch craft beer. “I was completely taken with [American breweries],” Dyson cheerfully exclaimed. “It was really fun to see a country in that way, very slowly, naturally. And each bit of it was very different.”

By the time Dyson pedaled all the way to California, he’d realized just how many breweries were scattered across the country. And that they were nothing like the smaller ones back in the UK, which were mostly cask-focused.

He drank at places like Russian River Brewing, Lagunitas, and Sierra Nevada, falling in love with hoppy beers like Pliny the Elder, Lagunitas IPA, and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Those American IPAs and pale ales—which Dyson described as having so many layers of flavor and far from one-dimensional—inspired him.

And so did the West Coast itself.

Dyson’s uncle took him to Sonoma County, an hour north of San Francisco.

“For whatever reason, that area in Sonoma just really took my imagination,” said Dyson. “I just thought it was really beautiful. … That place just stuck with me.”

The six-month cycling trip changed Dyson’s life. “I just kept on going and going,” he shared. Dyson cycled around the entire world from Mexico down through Central America, Colombia down to the bottom of Argentina, around Australia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia, through the ‘Stans,’ as he called them—Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan—through Georgia, Turkey, and back to Europe.

Despite cycling 35,000 miles through a number of countries Dyson can’t even recall off the top of his head (we checked later: it was at least twenty-five), the brewery owner fell in love Sonoma, full of mountains, forests, and vineyards. “It was just quite magical,” he reminisced. “I could cycle for an entire day and not come across anybody at all, and you’d be above the cloud line, look back down, and you were looking at the beach and everything covered in fog. It felt like being in a totally different world.”

When Dyson finally returned to the U.K., he went into beer full-time, working at breweries around London. In 2014, he opened his own brewery.

“We were just a tiny 2,000-liter brewery …at the end of an arch,” says Stefan Melbourne, Events & Creative Manager for Track, who started working at the brewery about four months after it opened. “We felt like a new wave of brewery, which was really exciting to be a part of because, at that time, Sam was just producing hoppy cask ale.”

The initial Track brewery was just a half mile down the road from the current brewery, tucked underneath the railway arches at Manchester Piccadilly station.

“If you were going there, you had to know about it,” said Dyson, who ran the tiny space with now head brewer Matt Dutton. The duo met while Dutton ran a small group of bars in the city.

At Track, they spent all day brewing and packaging, before setting up the bar and manning it themselves until one in the morning.

When Dyson thought about what he first wanted to make at Track, he had one beer in mind. “A 3.8% ABV pale ale is like the sweet spot for the northwest region of the U.K.,” Dyson explained. “The beer industry has come a long, long way. But really, if you can make a three to four percent pale ale on cask that is good, you’re going to get it into a lot of places.”

Dyson’s first brewing attempt was a 4.4% ABV pale ale named Ozark, which was a bit malt-forward. Dyson sought a clean, malt base with the hops layered on top. He wanted to create something you would sip and contemplate over. “It’s really hard to do, and with that beer, I don’t think I quite got there,” he remembered.

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

Next up, Dyson whipped up a brew he dubbed “Sonoma” after that captivating county back in the States that totally stole his heart. This second shot at a pale ale came in at a sessionable 3.8% ABV and absolutely nailed what Dyson had envisioned.

Sonoma put Track on the map with local craft beer lovers.

“There’s so much emotional connection to that beer, and particularly in cask,” says Melbourne, who came to Track after a career in music. “Anyone who knew us in the early days, that was the thing that drew them to us.”

Melbourne recalls an epic bash that the nearby Cloudwater Brewing threw in called “Friends, Family and Beer.” Big names in craft brewing from the States popped over. The day after, Track set up a brew day with the legends at Other Half. As the day went by, visiting brewers just kept waltzing through the door—Green Cheek, Bagby, Creature Comforts. “Everyone was sipping on Sonoma on cask,” said Melbourne. “And they were all like, this is amazing!”

Even now, the approachable pale ale reigns as Track’s flagship brew—the crowd favorite—and has morphed into a variety of versions.

It was the first beer I tried in the taproom. Overflowing with resinous vibes of fresh, fluffy mandarin and juicy mango, this is the definition of a perfect pale ale.

“In Manchester, it’s a part of our identity,” says Melbourne.

Still, when Dyson reaches for a beer at Track, it’s usually Sonoma.

A Unicorn in the U.K.

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

Track has always gone a little bit off the rails. But in the best way.

When Dyson started an American-style craft brewery a decade ago in the U.K., that kind of setup was like a unicorn—it didn’t exist!

“We have a very defined pub culture where you can set up a brewery, you can make beer, and then sell it to the pubs,” Dyson explained. “But the thing that I thought was more interesting was doing it and having people on site.”

After starting under the train tracks, Dyson moved Track around a bit before landing at its current location. Everything has been completed quite organically and iteratively. “There’s no great big pile of money anywhere,” Dyson joked.

Today, people flock to Track for its cask ales, highly rated stouts, and impressive hoppy ales.

In the taproom, the first thing you’ll see is Track’s handpulls, followed closely by that beautiful, brightly covered tap list.

“When you go to a taproom, you want to see the expression of the brewery,” said Dyson. “And as you work your way through the board over the course of the evenings, you’ll get a good idea of what we are as a brewery.”

Anchored by Sonoma, Track has remarkably gone on to craft more than four hundred unique IPAs and pale ales over its ten years of existence. That’s more than half of their entire beer lineup!

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

The crown jewel of their one-off IPAs, the Gold Top series is the brainchild of Dutton, showcasing juicy, creamy double milkshake IPAs. You can’t miss a Gold Top; just look for that shiny gold can lid and the golden drip on the label. Even though the milkshake craze has cooled off a bit, it’s still a fan-favorite among the Track diehards. With over twenty-five variations, each Gold Top brings a fresh twist to the style, mixing up different hop combos like a pro.

Melbourne loves their West Coast IPAs. “I’m really into our West Coasts at the moment,” he says. “It was always a market that sold a lot less over here, but I think people are actually coming back to this journey.”

During my visit, Track showcased a bunch of fresh hop beers featuring hops sourced from the local Manchester Hop Project, whose members grow the plants on a small scale in their own backyards.

But Track isn’t a one-trick pony. Although rooted in hops, the Manchester-based brewery also consistently brews some of the highest-rated stouts in the U.K. Pro Tip: Keep your eyes peeled for their prized Lunar series, which drops in sync with the lunar cycle.

And if Sonoma is on cask (which it most likely will be), you have to try it. When I grilled Melbourne about his favorite beer, challenging him to name something other than Sonoma on cask, he simply responded. “Oh, but it has to be!”

The Spirit of Sonoma, The Melodic Movement of Manchester

Photography courtesy of Magic Muncie, Social Media Manager, Hop Culture and Untappd

A decade ago, Track helped start something in Manchester. Within a square mile of their original location were around sixteen breweries—all doing something different.

“It’s very rare that you feel you’re part of a new movement,” said Melbourne, “but it felt like a new movement.” There was an energy about craft beer, not just in Manchester but across the U.K.

“Now you have people coming through the tap room and being like, Oh, we were inspired by you,” said Melbourne. “It feels really weird, really strange because we were so used to being this small startup.”

Early on, Dyson, Dutton, and Melbourne decided that just growing for the sake of it was never something they wanted to pursue at Track. “Growth wasn’t a main driver,” said Melbourne. “We wanted to be the best we could be.”

Today, when you walk into Track’s taproom, it’s like stepping into a party. It’s buzzing; it’s bursting with color. It’s got a vibe that’s unmistakable.

You might find taproom manager Paul Farrell hosting a monthly film discussion group called Magic Lantern Film Club or the One Foot Forward running club, getting ready to go out for a run.

Track isn’t just one of the most highly rated craft breweries in the country; it’s a hub for the community.

“When I was a musician, the only thing I ever really wanted was to be respected by my peers, to make music that people loved,” said Melbourne. “It’s the same in beer.”

And if you’re going to make us say it, at a nondescript industrial park in Manchester, it seems Dyson, Dutton, and Melbourne are on the right track.