The Brewery
By Lucy Hine
We have been in the process of setting up our small brewery in this former stable block for the last 2 years. And we still haven’t finished! Perhaps that’s just what happens when you have other jobs and some small children to fit in to your life too.
We are setting up the space to be able to make the styles of beer that we’ve always been most excited to drink. Those made in the beautiful European farmhouse tradition: Belgian Saisons and Lambics; French Bières de Garde. Tart and complex, they are more akin to dry cider or wine, than what the rest of the world recognises as beer. Other European oddities and little-known styles, like German Goses or Berliner Weisses, have also long-piqued our interest and tastebuds.
The thing that links the styles we like best is an unusual use of yeast, whether in fermentation or ageing, to create very pronounced, funky, spicy, earthy flavours, with lots of dryness and, sometimes, a perceived ‘sourness’.
In order to achieve these flavours, we are installing a 1,000L ‘coolship’ up in the rafters of the brewery, alongside large oak foudres for ageing. A coolship is a shallow, open vessel that is used for cooling ‘wort’ (unfermented beer). During the overnight cooling period, lots of air-born yeasts and microflora are picked up which triggers a spontaneous, or natural, fermentation. These batches are normally left for years to ferment and age in spent oak casks or vats. The result will be something that is completely unique to the brewery’s location.
As well as fermenting naturally, we wanted to capture a demonstrable coastal character in our beers. Saltier styles, like Goses, felt like a good starting point. (Goses were traditionally made with the addition of salt and coriander). But as keen foragers, we have also focused on incorporating many wild, foraged ingredients into our recipes. Things like seabuckthorn, fennel and seaweed, all taken from the coastline, meadows and hedgerow surrounding the brewery.
All of this adds up to a very idiosyncratic and inconsistent way to produce, which appeals to us greatly, as we love the idea of the seasons, our location and some uncontrollable microbes, affecting the way each batch turns out.
Today, while we await the arrival of the coolship and all of the oak bits and pieces, the brewery is made up of five second-hand stainless steel vessels, which we picked up way back at the start of this project from a pub brewery down in Telford. The pub was putting out traditional cask ales to a regular (and very thirsty) Saturday night crowd. Not sure what those drinkers would make of what we’re doing with the brewery now, but hopefully there would be a couple of curious souls who would give us a go.
Our first beers are available on tap at the brewery taproom and we are there every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from midday in case you’d like to pop in to look around or hear more about what we’re up to.
For more photos and to see our progress, please follow us on Instagram.
