A visit to White Peak distillery

My first visit of the year with the CIBD was to White Peak distillery. It was a bit of a trek for me, but it made sense as it fitted in with a trip to the Lake District, and in a strange twist of fate I work more with spirits than beer nowadays.  

The distillery was founded in 2016 and is currently making 50,000 litres of pure alchol (LPA) per year.  That sounded quite a lot to me at first, until I remembered it was litres not hectolitres. They're not actually making pure alcohol, but LPA is the commonly used measurement for distillers. They make whisky, rum and gin but it's defintintely whisky they're really interested in. The neutral spirit (which is almost pure alcohol) for the gin is bougth in. 

If they're filling their whisky casks at 63.5% ABV (the standard in Scotland) it works out around 394 American Standard Barrels (approx 200L) a year. 

Dave Symes, the distillery manager, gin still back left

They use a mixture of distilling malt and peat malt to make lightly peated whiskies. Mostly they get malt from Crips but they have got some local barley malted at Warminster, and they have also used Chevallier malt. 

They mash in a semi-lauter tun at 63.5°C for only 20 minutes. As they're making a whisky wash there's no boil and starch conversion carries on after mashing as enzymes, including limit dextrinase, are still active. 

Semi-lauter tun because the rakes don't go up and down

They usually recirculate the wort for 20 minutes to give a clear wort, as less cereal notes in the spirit means more fruity notes can come through. When using the locally grown barley they got malted they ran the rakes continuously instead as they wanted as much from the cereal as possible!

They make 3000L of wort at 1.060 which ferments down to 0.997 giving an ABV of 8%. Dried MG+ distillers yeast and brewer's yeast from Thornbridge is used. Fermentation lasts a week, which is long for whisky, but it allows more lactic acid to grow which leads to more esters and fruity flavours in the sprit. Fermentation starts at 19°C but it can rise to as high as 42°C! The small amount of rum they make from cane sugar and molasses takes ten weeks to ferment. They have also done some unpitched "spontaneous" fermentations (started at 25°C) which also takes weeks. 

Washback (fermenting vessel)\

The 3000L wash (fermented wort) still is heated by steam coils, and the condenser is cooled with river water. Distllation continiues until the spirit collected is 2% ABV, giving 1000L of low wines at 24% ABV. The wash still lyne arm slopes slightly downwards towards the condenser, in the spirt still it slopes 3° upwards, increasing reflux back to the still for re-distillation. 

Wash still

In the spirt still heads (foreshots) are collected for the first 15 minutes of good flow and the body (middle cut) is collected until the ABV drops to 67%. After that the tails (feints) are collected, and the heads and tails go in to the next distillation. The spirit still starts boiling at 77°C and ends at 85°C. 

Spirit safe

350Litres of new make spirit are collected at 72% abv, which is used to make light, fruity whiskies. Long maturation increases ester levels and gives more fruitiness. Maturation takes place in a range of casks, including: bourbon, red wine, port, maderia, some sherry and some virgin oak. Wine casks are shaved, toasted and recharred. They also use some finishing casks, such as Amarone wine casks, for the last nine to 12 months. The sizes include 125L quarter casks, 200L American Standard Barrels, 235L wine barriques and 500L butts. 

Initally they used to fill at 63.5% ABV but have moved to filing bourbon casks at 60% and wine casks at 70%. To give you an idea of what they want to get from the casks, more wood components are soluble in water than alcohol so lower ABV is considered better for getting flavour from casks. 

Most casks are stacked on their side, three high, like in a traditional Scottish dunnage warehouse (though without the dirt floor). Some are stacked upright on pallets though. 

Then it was on to the tasting. As I was driving it's for the best it was small measures, something I don't normally approve of at CIBD events. 

We had Caduro (1/3 bourbon casks, 2/3 STR wine barriques) at 46.8% ABV, Bourbon Barrel at 53.4% ABV and Necessary Evil at 51.3% ABV, aged in Thornbridge beer casks. Then it was on to Langdale for me. 

The next day: OP at the ODG