Back to Harvey's brewery

The unfortunate late cancellation of a planned trip to Germany did have a silver lining: it meant I was able to go on my local CAMRA branch's trip to Harvey's brewery.  

It's disturbingly long since I was last there so it was great to be back. 

Obligatory picture of Lewes Cathedral from the bridge

See

They've been able to extend the yard out the back so we got a bit further round than I have before:

Not the pretty side

But mostly it was the same with Head Brewer, the wonderful Miles Jenner, doing his thing. 

I did get the answer to something I've wondered about, what with them being a traditional brewery with two Coppers and two Mash Tuns:

Copper no.1, which dates from 1999 as the old one was worn out.

Copper no.2, which came from Grays brewery

Mash Tun 1

They do indeed parti-gyle. 

The hops are Fuggle, Progress, Golding and Bramling Cross, so a mixture of old and modern; Progress and Bramling Cross coming after Ernest Salmon started hop breeding in 1904. A pound a barrel is used in the Best Bitter, with hop dosing at the start and late in the boil, and in the hop back. Armada ale, which was my favourite when we got to the sampling room, is dry hopped.

Mashing in takes 15 minutes and they have a 45 minute mash stand at 65°C. Astonishingly (to me anyway) they still boil their brewing liquor to reduce carbonates. They usually boil for 75 minutes, though it's three hours for the Russian Imperial Stout!

They can brew from to 25 to 260bbl a day.

Production peaked at 45,000 barrels a year in 2010 but is now around 30,000, though that looks stable. 

FT no. 7

I was delighted so spot that their Fermenting Vessels are called FTs, which must surely be Fermenting Tuns. I'd been pondering that Fermenting Vessel sounds a modern term compared to Copper (which is still widely used, though Kettle seems to have become more common) and Mash Tun. 

On the chalk board there's volumes in British beer barrels (36 gallons, 163.66L). The temperature is, of course, in Fahrenheit so it's not in fact massively high, they've collected into the FT at the lowly 16.5°C. You might also be thinking that the gravity looks really low but the 19.4 is not degrees sacch, it's pounds per barrel so the SG is 1.0539. 

The yeast came from John Smith's brewery in 1957. It was originally single strain, but now it's two. And that's not to mention the Debaryomyces. 

Macaroni head

Bottling is carried out on site. They still use returnable bottles, which on a personal level was slightly annoying as I'd left the two empties I had at home! There are signs returnable bottles may be making a comeback so Harvey's are now ahead of the curve on this one. 

In the traditional manner they have a tunnel pasteuriser, which being traditional probably runs at three billion Pasteurisation Units (I didn't think to ask). 

There's a not so traditional canning line that was installed post-Covid. 

But 92% of their production is still cask: beer served as god intended.

Cask racking

Miles said that without CAMRA the brewery wouldn't be there and I certainly do my bit to help Harvey's whenever I see their beers on the bar. 

The sampling room had moved but the joy of going there hadn't changed and I did a thorough sampling. 

The mild and best had won recent regional CAMRA awards so the certificates were presented and the beers will be progressing in the Champion Beer of Britain competition.

There were options to go on to the pub or a beer festival after the brewery visit but having made the most of my time in the sampling room I decided to head home. Mind you, I did make it to my local later!