Beer lab opens in Szimpla - interview

Tamás Szilágyi, one of the founders of Mad Scientist told us how it feels to see years your dreams come true on tap after years of labour, which deputed under the name “Labor” (Laboratory) on the first floor of Szimpla, where special craft beers are on offer from this week

 

 

 

When you open a brewery, you also crave for a place where you can show the beers you make, as beer bars showing craft beers work in a kind of rotation. When they run out of one type, there is something brand new, and these periods are getting longer. As there are many breweries, it might happen that one type of beer is not on offer in a given place. I believe it is important to have fixed taps, and when someone asks where they can taste the beers by Mad Scientist I could say here and there, for instance in Szimpla. We soon realized we did not want to bother with this part, therefore we needed an external place, we did not want to spend time with anything else on the expense of brewing, or the expense of quality. To make a brewery or a bar perfect, you need full commitment, 100 per cent enthusiasm. Then came the idea what if such a first place was in Szimpla. The fact that we did it is really awesome, as there are all kinds of guests coming here and this means many people will encounter our beers. This is like a mirror, it reflects the attitude of beer consumers, who have come primarily to drink beer to our products, it is an excellent feedback. This is also an experiment.

This is why you call the place Labor (Lab)?

Yes, we will bring experimental brews, limited editions, available only in a very few places.

However, are your already popular beers also available here?

That’s right, but this primarily a place to test what people like, from all over the world.

Where has the name, Mad Scientist has come from?

When you start your own venture, all your ideas come from you, therefore the name was also our idea. We wanted foreigners to have a name they recognize. It is good when a brand name shows what consumers can expect, when it shows something from the product beforehand. However, we did not want to use an incomprehensible English word. It was also important that the name projects our ideas. This “scientist” concept for us means there is somebody who respects science, deals with it, however is always on the frontier. We wanted to imply that we always try to create something new, and experimenting is also present in this expression, as it is present in all we have talked about earlier. We hope we will be able to create unusual, exciting and unique things all the time.

Can you mention a beer which is available here in the Labor?

 

For instance, we have Mango Bay here, a beer designed on a classic American Pale Ale basis, containing lactose and mango. We wanted to create a new beer based on mango lassi. We all love eating, and we dream about flavours and trends like this. When we hired, during the interview it was also a question whether they like cooking. We also try everything, beers produced by others, and also other drinks which may inspire us. We have Tokyo Lemonade for example, which is a Belgian wheat bear with coriander and orange peel, this was one of our summer hits, many people love it.

(Photo: Mátyás Szöllősi)