We operate a 5BBL (1 Brewer’s Barrel = 36 gallons) self built plant out of our premises on Hempshaw Lane. All of our beers are made by hand, with the only automation being two pumps to pump the hot liquids to the different vessels.

The Brewing Process

The first stage in the brewing process is called the mash. Water is heated to around 77°C and mixed into the grain bill, which lowers the temperature to the required level – different mashing temperatures affect the outcome of the beer so the brewer adjusts the water temperature in the mash tun to create the desired effects. The process of mashing activates the enzymes in the malted barley so that they can break down the starches in the malt and turn them into fermentable sugars. This process usually takes around 60 – 90 minutes.

Once the mashing has taken place the sweet, coloured ‘wort’ is transferred to the boiler. Here the wort is brought up to the boil and the hops added at various times. This process does a number of things – the temperature sterilises the liquid to get rid of any bacterias that might be present, it concentrates the wort and drives off any undesirable minerals from the water source. It also extracts the bitter acids from the hops, which act as preservatives, extending the life of the beer. We usually boil for 60 minutes, but may vary the boil length in order to get a more concentrated wort.

When the boil is over the wort then needs to be cooled quickly and transferred into a clean, sterilised fermenting vessel. The cooling process is done by a plate heat exchanger, with the hot excess water being collected for the next brew. The yeast is then pitched into the cooled wort. Ale yeast is happiest between 18°C and 24°C – any lower and it won’t eat as much sugar, any higher and it will impart undesirable flavours.

The yeast is left to its own devices to convert the sugars in the wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide whilst we keep a close eye on how it is doing, taking fresh yeast from the top of the fermenting vessel ready to use for the next brew. We dry hop certain beers in the fermentation vessel with pelletised hops when the gravity of the beer drops below a certain level, to give a big hop aroma. Once fermentation has taken place we chill the beer to 5 degrees c for 24 hours in order to drop the yeast out.

If the beer is going into cask we sometimes add a very small amount of finings to the cask, which helps the beer to clear once it is at the pub. Unfortunately these finings are not vegetarian friendly, but all the beer which goes into bottles and kegs does not have contact with these finings and so all of our kegged and bottled beers are suitable for vegetarians and vegans. We do, however, judge if a beer needs these finings and sometimes they do not. If this is the case we cask our beers unfined, and will label the cask as being suitable for vegans and vegetarians. If this is important for you, please ask the publican or bar staff to check the cask for this label – we will be displaying this information on pump clips very soon but pump clips can be lost at pubs, so the cask label is the best place to check for this.