The Brewers Congress, London 2021 part one

Having won tickets for to the Brewers Congress I had a fun day out in London. The talks were a mixed bag, but there was some good stuff in there and lots of free beer. 

First up was the rich guy who bought us a bottle of expensive beer to share in Portland, Greg Zeschuk:

Cheers Greg!

I hadn't known who he was before so I was glad to see this mystery solved. He did a talk about his brewery and building a team. Team building is important as you can't do everything yourself! Goals must be defined and everyone in a team has a role to fill. He uses selective hiring where as many people as possible will be involved in hiring and consensus must be reached before anyone is offered a job. He uses 'social engineering' to bring together people he thinks will work well together. Selective firing is also used though; "talented terrors aren't worth it!"

He was followed by another rich guy with a glorious American accent who did a talk about his lovely looking brewery in Norfolk:

Talk of the day for me was from Aaron McClure of Sharp's Brewery, who gave a very interesting presentation despite having what looked like a raging hangover:

Production at Sharp's rose rapidly, though it seems to have peaked in 2017:

They have a policy of putting people first and put time and money into it. 

The goal of making Doom Bar the number one cask ale brand no doubt became easier once they were owned by a large multinational corporation. But they're still only going to manage rapid growth if they have enthusiastic staff so aim to align their goal with how their values, mind set, behaviour and ways of working. 

Lots of brewers burn out and leave the industry so they have a range of support tools available, including doing pad work by the look of it. I suppose that helps get out some of your frustrations.

The support developing their staff, whether that's people keen to work towards a new role or just learn more about the job they currently do.

They engage with their staff, letting as many people as possible have a go on the pilot brewery and even stopping production for a table tennis tournament!

The success can be measured, such as by the high staff retention rate.  

Bi-annual anonymous staff surveys are also carried out.

Then there was a panel discussion on cask beer followed by a short intermission before FW Charlotte Cook was up to talk about hops, more on which will be revealed when I get round to writing it up. 

Breaking the glass ceiling

The price of premium bottled ales doesn't seem to have changed in years. Like some fixed feudal price it's been around £2 a bottle, or £1.50 when you look for special offers or multibuys, for ages. 

I can't see this lasting though. Brewery suppliers are  not bound by such feudal constraints. At the moment all of them seem to be putting their prices up, many by double digit percentages and in the case of CO2 by 300%. There's no way breweries will be able to absorb these costs. Supermarkets have a lot of power when it comes to beating down prices but even they aren't going to be able to make brewers sell beer at below cost. Not in the long term anyway. 

The cost pressures will also apply to craft cans, though at the moment they seem to be going down in price. I'm not much of  a can buyer but if I remember rightly it's not so long ago they were generally £3 a pop for 330ml cans, whereas £2.50 for 440ml seems common now. 

And in more bad news for small brewers about half the craft cans in my local supermarket were made by multinationals.

Horror in Hackney Wick

The Beer Merchants Tap is not the place for me. Having an open plan industrial look and a single hand pump shows it's a craft beer bar and therefore not really designed for a #PubMan like myself. I took it on the chin though. I try not to get upset about such things nowadays. And the Best from Beak Brewery in Lewes was perfectly fine, thought it's no Harvey's. 

Look at the long bar

However, when my friends had arrived and I went to get a round in my carefully controlled calm demeanour was shattered. My mate pointed out to me the horror of what was happening: "they're queueing" he said. I could not believe my ears. "You don't queue in pubs!" I replied. But looking round I saw that what he said was true. People lining up despite the length of the bar. Is this what the world has come to? In the country god chose to bring beer to perfection in people are now abandoning our beer culture and traditions. I know it's a bleedin' bar but pub rules still apply, so it shouldn't be treated like a grocery shop!

The horror, the horror

I did of course join the queue. I'm British after all. But fortunately my mate got served without having to queue so the shame and ignominy was short lived. 

No Gods, No Masters

 

Beer, beer, we want more beer

 I can get a lot of free beer from work. But does this mean I'm not interested in being sent more? Nay, nay and thrice nay! Unlike the petty bourgeois brewers whinging about beer tax being reduced I take the proletarian position that beer should be made freely available to all. Even if I don't drink it myself I can always find a fellow worker grateful for a prefigurative pint!

So when Haacht brewery offered me some beer there could be only one answer. I was slightly concerned when the box arrived though: only four beers. And one of them was a lager. Still, as they had come for free I couldn't grumble too much. 

As it turned out, I actually liked the lager. 

A bit sweet, but still crisp and without any unpleasant vegetable aromas, a surprisingly good start from Haacht. 

The Super 8 IPA was what you'd expect from a Belgian IPA. Let's just say it wouldn't be winning any games of frogger. 

The spicy Super 8 Flandrien was more on the ball, though again I'd have preferred it if they'd cranked it up a bit ...

... which I also thought about the Tongerlo Brown, a pleasant enough dubbel which left me looking for a tripel. 

All of Haacht's offerings went down easily enough but seemed a bit restrained to me. Does this mean I'm turning craftie?

A visit to Palmer's Brewery

You can't beat an old tower brewery. So I was very much looking forward to the Brewery History Society AGM at Palmers. Built in 1794 being a tower brewery is really the least of it when it comes to history as I was to find out on the tour. 

God's waiting room BHS AGM

I went round with the group lead by Head Brewer Darren Batten. Though you can't tell from the first photo we started at the top, the best way to see a tower brewery. 

This is high up you know

See?

Malt comes in sacks, and they prefer 50kg sacks when they can get them as there are less to hoist up! There's a refreshing small number of beers produced and the malt is elegant in its simplicity: mostly pale and crystal with some beers having amber and/or wheat and one with some munich. 

I can't say 50kg sacks is something I would approve of at work, but then we have to lift them to waist height to mill them whereas here they can just tip them over:

 

The old screen and mill is no longer used, but as befits an old brewery it's all left in place. 

They still have the steam engine that drove the belts, though the first time it's been used in years was for our visit:

The new mill is a more modest affair and they don't bother with screening the malt nowadays. 

The mash tun us used for brews up to 60 bbl, with annual output being around 7,000bbl. 

..

There's a lovely copper grant:

And speaking of copper, the copper is actually made of copper rather than stainless steel and it's an open vessel!

Even back in the day I can't help but think surely someone would have said: "Is having thousands of pints of boiling wort in an open vat a good idea?". I guess copper's never been cheap. 

They now have an external wort boiler:

So no more shovelling coal in under the copper:

The guy who brought up the sacks and fed the flame had an unlimited beer allowance and would get through eight pints a day! 

After the copper the wort goes to an underback where more hops can be added:

The hops are mostly Goldings, First Gold and Styrian Goldings, with a small amount of Citra used for a new keg beer. 

The have a Baudelot cooler they only stopped using in 2009:

The hot water from it was discharged straight into the river which, after they'd been doing it for a century or so, the Environment Agency objected to. The Head Brewer seemed a bit annoyed about this. I'd be delighted to switch to a paraflow myself, as I'm sure were the people who had to scrub the cooler clean for an hour each side after use!

The fermenting vessels are also open:

These are cut down old cider vats

Check out the temperature probes!

The yeast came from Eldridge Pope in 1976.

They use a lot of 4.5 gallon pins, which they sell for exactly half the price of a 9 gallon firkin to encourage their pub tenants to focus on beer quality. 

They got the waterwheel going for us too, thought it's also not normally in use. Did the video save thought?  Did it bollocks. They have looked into using the waterwheel for electricity generation but sadly it's not cost effective.  

The weird cowl on the roof is to help vent the steam from the open copper. It needs the right wind direction to work well though!

You can just see a bit of thatch on the roof on the right:

After lunch we went to the brewery shop where the prestigious BHS certificate was presented by the Chairman to the Head Brewer.

And there was a chance to stock up on some excellently bottled beers: