A visit to Timothy Taylor's brewery

I don't really have time to organise visits for the Brewery History Society at the moment, but no one has volunteered to take over the job. So when I can I'm organising a few trips, and strangely enough I somehow managed to find the time to organise a visit to Timothy Taylor's brewery.

My obsession with Landlord is entirely unrelated to this.

The brewhouse came from the wrong side of the Pennines, originally being from Oldham brewery. They recently added a new Steel's masher.

The mash tun was filled almost to the brim, giving a brewlength of 180 barrels which is liquored back to 250 bbl. They still work in Fahrenheit and unfortunately I brew in Celsius. Figures were kindly translated for us and they mash at 66°C for an hour, then underlet raising the temperature to 70°C and leave for another hour.

They use only whole hops and add more hops in the hop back.

A lot more hops go in the copper though.

And I bet it's a right pain in the arse filling those bins. The use WGV (Whitbread or is it White's Golding Variety), Fuggles and Savinjski Goldings, with true Goldings also being used some years.

Brewing sugars are used in wort production and priming sugar is added to the casks.

Blocks of No.2 there

They carry out a range of lab tests in house...

...including using an antique Lovibond meter. Modern colour determination only measures colour at one wavelength (430nm) which does not give the full picture so they compare the colour of their beer to tinted glass slides by eye.

They ferment in open squares and rouse the yeast during fermentation. The yeast also came from Oldham brewery and they've been continuously re-pitching for 36 years.

They crop the yeast by skimming it off the top.

Newer vessels have lids that can drop down and seal the tanks. Which makes CIP (cleaning in place) easier and allows them to be used as conditioning tanks.

They now have a five barrel pilot plant which has been used for brewing some small batch beers.

Production is over 80% cask, with the rest being bottled at Robinsons. Annual production is 61,000 barrels so unsurprisingly they have very snazzy cask washing and racking equipment.

They still have to bang in the shives by hand mind.

With the casks being primed and racked with a yeast count of 2 million cells per ml there is a vigorous secondary fermentation. They recommend the cask is vented and left open for 24 hours before adding a soft peg.

The tour ended with a look at the Quality Control.

Very important that bit.

An itinerary of old inns in London

The Book of Beer by Andrew Campbell contains some itineraries of pubs. No pub crawls for him! Though the book dates from 1956 I recognised the name of some of the pubs and a quick google later I found that for at least one of the itineraries all of the pubs were still trading.

So for the purposes of historical research I teamed up with Tim Holt, the editor of the Journal of the Brewery History Society, to investigate.

We met at The Ship Tavern near Holborn. I was slightly concerned to see it covered in scaffolding but fortunately the pub was still open. I must admit I didn't pay too much attention to the pub, the journey to London had dried out my throat a little and I was more interested in getting a refreshing drink. Wimbledon brewery's SW19 did the job we were soon ready to head for the next stop on our itinerary.

This was The Seven Stars, a cosy little pub with great character and great beer. I couldn't resist a pint of Harvey's Sussex Bitter, despite their support for the Small Brewers Duty Reform Coalition (Boo! Hiss!). The pub was decorated with old film posters, which there's probably a story behind but I don't know what it is.

I know we now live in ecumenical times and pubs need to expand what they offer, but I was still pleased to hear that they didn't serve tea. Particularly when the woman who'd ask for a cup got a half of bitter instead.

Ye Olde Cock Tavern was next, once owned by Truman's now owned by Greene King. This did not inspire me with a great deal of excitement about the beers. I rarely enjoy their IPA and the itinerary was too long for me to start drinking Abbot.

So I went for their Yardbird, which had a pleasant American hop flavour, until about half way down when the hops seemed muted and diacetyl came to the fore. Still, I'll give them 8/10 for effort.

Then it was on to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a Sam Smith's pub.

I'm not a huge fan of their Old Brewery Bitter, being served from wooden kilderkins it probably doesn't travel well. I've had a few good pints recently though so I gave it a go. It was thin but drinkable.

The pub is a warren of a place, with most of the seating in what look like an old cellar. It was totally rammed so we ended up perched on a small bench near the bogs. Not ideal really but needs must.

The Old Bell was the last on our itinerary and I was delighted to see they had Landlord on, another beer I can never resist.

We'd made good time with our research so Tim suggested we visit another pub.

The Jerusalem Tavern is St Peter's Brewery's only pub and I'd never been so I was keen to see it.

 

The lack of handpumps put me in a difficult position, the theological implications of which I'm still struggling with. Assuming it was a keg only establishment I had a pint of their porter served from the devil's drainpipe. To my horror I then spotted cask beer was advertised on the blackboard at the back, the taps from the barrel ends apparently serving beer as god intended.

Suckling at the devil's drainpipe is only a venial sin if no real ale is available, but surely to do so when it was is a mortal sin. Except in a Sam Smith's pub obviously. It was a genuine mistake on my part but would being ignorant be enough to save my immortal soul? My intentions were good but you know what the road to hell is paved with. I quickly said an act of contrition and three Hail Protzes to be on the safe side.

Then it was definitely time to be going, back home for a troubled night's sleep as I fretted about my error and its potential grave implications.

A visit to Harvey's Brewery

After the warm up at Burning Sky the main event was at Harvey's the next day. We were meeting at 11 am in the brewery tap before the BHS AGM at noon. Or at least that was the plan but a couple of leisurely pints of mild before getting down to business was not to be for me. A points failure meant my train slowly sauntered south and there was only time for a swifty before things kicked off.

Despite running late I stopped to take the obligatory photo of the brewery from the bridge in Lewes, correctly assuming that by the time I staggered back I'd completely forget about it.

Good, innit?

Though not quite up to IBD speed standards the AGM was mercifully brief. If only the committee meetings were like that.

If the BHS embraced keg beer there'd probably be more young people or something

A tour of the listed brewery followed the AGM

The extension to the tower only dates from the 80s though

We heard more from Head Brewer Miles Jenner before going inside:

He talked about when they were flooded. The tank behind him was ripped out of the concrete.

The flood level is marked by the plaque above the head of the gentleman on the right:

They still have a copper Copper, though it's relatively recent, dating from the 90s if I remember rightly. Miles was worried switching to all stainless steel might upset the yeast so replaced the old Copper with a new copper one.

They have a stainless Copper too.

and a steam engine they fire up once a year.

Old and new mash tuns too:

as well as a Sugar Dissolving Vessel with syrups and blocks of invert sugar:

This is where the sacks of malt enter the brewery:

Some of the hops come from The Hampton Estate so bear the Farnham bell.

A map on the wall from 1980 showed where hop farms were then:

Good old Bastard East Kent is there but shockingly no mention of Farnham.

This crime is then compounded by a diagram saying the Farnham bell is used for hops from Hampshire:

I believe all the hop farms in Hampshire are now gone, though the number of hop farms in the Farnham area in Surrey has recently doubled. Sadly only to two though.

Inside a mash tun

More of the copper Copper

They use open fermenters. The parachute shown below is used for yeast cropping. It can be lowered into the yeast head and the yeast runs into it and then down a pipe to where it can be collected below.

The gravity is given in Pounds Per Barrel, which I think makes it 48.6 in degrees Sacch. They still use Fahrenheit too.

Here's a parachute in an empty Fermenting Vessel, with an attemperator to cool the beer on the left, and what looks like some beer stone at the back.

Lots of dipsticks:

Harvey's are the only brewery in Britain to still use returnable bottles.

The 1948 chiller on the left

The recently returned to kegging to satisfy the demand of people who prefer beer that is not the pinnacle of the brewers art. They sell around a thousand barrels of keg a year.

The filler is from Lambrechts

As all good brewery tours do we ended in the sample room, where I'm delighted to say Tom Paine was on despite the fact we'd not quite reached July. I used to have a pilgrimage to Lewes with my dad every July to drink that beer.

The winner for beer of the day was Armada in the brewery tap though, but then the magic of cask beer is not something for mortals to understand.