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.

A South East pub walk

As we didn't get away for the bank holiday weekend we decided to get some walking in nearer to home. We (mostly) used a route from CAMRA's South East Pub Walks. The first pub stop is in Puttenham, home of Surrey's last hop ground and which gave me a chance to see how the hops were getting on as harvest time approaches.

We started at Wanborough station which had the added bonus that the foot paths took us across fields. First we went through wheat but soon we got to a superior cereal which pleased me. Walking through a barley field on the way to a hop field as part of a pub walk has a certain beery completeness to it.

Among the fields of barley

The Fuggles were looking on fine form.

The Good Intent was as good as last time with the added bonus that I wasn't driving. We only had a pint though as we had a long way to cover.

They had quite a selection at the bar but when Landlord is on I find it hard to resist. So I didn't.

Our next stop was the Harrow in Compton.

Sadly the Tribute was warm which was not ideal. I even had the finish the lovely Lisa's pint for her. Our route then took us past some huge houses and along a river to the last scheduled stop, The Star in Godalming. They had a good selection but again the beer was a bit warm.

We got the train back to Woking for food, calling in at The Sovs. It has an enlightened attitude to taking back poor quality beer.

Not that I needed to take anything back. I had a Hawkshead Windermere Pale, a beer that seems very popular with my fellow internet beer nerds. It was a good example of the ever so fashionable pale and tastes of American hops style of beer.

After eating it was time to crawl on to The Crown.

More Tribute in here, and it was a much nicer pint than it had beer at the Harrow. Then it was time for home.

I enjoyed out first outing from the SE Pub Walks book, and unlike some of the routes in the London Pub Walks book which have about eight pubs per mile, we had to earn our beer, which is no bad thing.

The Bat and Ball, Farnham

I was convalescing at the weekend, having been under the weather for days. Who would have though the old nose to have so many bogies in it? "Out, damned snot" I went as I blew my nose yet again. Oh yes, you get proper literature on this blog.

But enough of this nonsense. On Sunday the lovely Lisa and I went for a stroll in the forest at Alice Holt, which just happens to be right by Holt Pound farm. Unless I'm mistaken that was the last place hops were grown in Farnham. You wouldn't believe how excited I got as we drove past.

Alice Holt was good, if a bit busy. After doing the whole healthy thing: you know, getting fresh air and stretching our legs, I was feeling much better so it was time for some refreshment.

We called in at the Bat and Ball, a nearby tick. It was a large old fashioned pub with a log fire going and we managed to get seats nearby.

They had half a dozen beers on, and free roast potatoes waiting on the bar, a practice I thoroughly approve of. As seem to be the case in most pubs on Sunday afternoons nowadays there was a profusion of ankle biters wandering round. What's wrong with sitting outside with a bottle of coke and a bag of crisps, eh?

As you would expect in a pub called the bat and ball the was cricket stuff on the wall, but of more interest were the old pictures of hop pickers and a brewery yard with those giant barrel pyramids they seemed so fond of.

I had a pint of Timmy Taylor's Golden Best (3.5% ABV) which isn't as good as Landlord. Lisa had a Itchen Valley Winchester Ale, a well kept malty red beer which seemed to go down well.

Then it was time to head back and get the roast on.

More beers in Borough

After all the foot slogging of our last research trip we went for a more concentrated effort this time, focusing of Borough. 

Our first stop was The Wheatsheaf, a cellar bar. I spied Titanic Steerage amongst the handpumps, and fresh from enjoying their Lifeboat at the GBBF I had no hesitation in ordering a pint. Sadly it wasn't in good nick, unlike the lovely Lisa's Ufford's Golden Drop which was on top form. 

It seemed a nice enough bar but I was getting a bit twitchy as I wanted to get to Utobeer before it shut so we hurried on.

I'd checked out the Utobeer website again before we set off, but as ever the promise on the holding page that a 'New website is coming soon' had not been fulfilled. Not having any advance information of what beers are on offer does make it difficult to plan your shopping, and the annoying (and quite possibly illegal) lack of prices on display doesn't help when you get there. Though they have started putting price tags on the really pricey beer, which no doubt saves the person on the till a lot of aggro from shocked customers. 

As it was I nearly didn't spot one of the beers I was very keen to get as they were in a different section from the other British beers. Fortunately on my way to the till I spied them: Hardknott Dave's beers. These were pricey enough to qualify for price tags but we had to have one, so we forked out for a bottle of Infra red before heading on to the Market Porter.  

We always seem to end up in the same spot in this pub, and whilst the view through the window (picture above) might look like an ordinary street seen it is in fact a form of entrapment. If you look closely you'll see the guy giving away free cheese samples which draws us into the shop every time. So one swift cheese  purchase later we were ready for our next stop: Brew Wharf. 

There won't be much change coming back from that £20 note

The last time we were here they didn't have any of their own beers on which is a bit crap for a brew pub, but I'd heard they'd improved so we gave it another go. They did actually have one of their own beers on this time, but they don't half crank the prices up here. It must be a Borough market thing. Their abc was a weak (3% ABV) beer that tasted of hops and nothing else. Really quite pleasant but at £3.90 a pint I should hope so too. 

Never having been to the Rake, a bar connected to Utobeer and renowned for its beer range we thought we really ought to. Of course the Utobeer holding page doesn't do anything useful like give an address, if it did we might have made it there sooner. 

The bar is tiny but they did have a lot of beers. On hand pump were two beers from Otley brewery, who are normally good and Goose Island Bourbon County Stout from the States. Excellent I thought and I asked for a pint of each. "I can only give you a half or third of the Stout" said the bar maid "It's 13%". Whilst we were conferring about whether this was really the sort of thing we should be buying the bar maid pulled us a half so I guess it was. The round came to £12.50 which I think is a record for two and a half pints. The Bourbon County Stout was good though. As flat as a pancake and syrupy in texture but very, very tasty. I've been meaning to brew a strong stout for a while but it might have to have be aged on spirit soaked oak chips now.  

Our news pub was a much more normal boozer, The Shipwrights Arms, and I had a much more normal beer, Timmy Taylor's Landlord. It's a favourite of mine and I was glad to see it was runner up in this years Champion Beer of Britain competition. 

Things must have been catching up with me at this point as we somehow ended up getting a taxi to a Mexican restaurant where we drank margaritas. 

I didn't feel well the next day. 

Another pub crawl in the city

Due to a unfortunate circumstances beyond my control we had to cancel our latest trip to the lake district. On the plus side this did leave us with a work free Friday - an ideal opportunity to visit some of those city pubs that are annoyingly closed at the weekend. So we hooked up with our mate Dan and headed up to the big smoke. 

On the South bank there was some sort of art thing, looking like what you'd do if you wanted to play with lego but only had bricks. 

Normally the only sort of culture I come across is found in a petri dish so I felt quite highbrow and sophisticated for pausing briefly to look at it. Refined intellectual pursuits done with my throat was feeling a little dry so it was time to move on.

The lovely Lisa wanted to get a watch strap in Covent Garden so we went shopping before starting on the pub crawl. We passed the Coal Hole on the way though so were able to have a pre-pub crawl drink. I went for a pint of Timmy Taylor's. I can't get enough of it.

We then had the excitement of the Covent Garden watch shop but we soon reached the proper start: the Old Bank of England.  Dan hadn't been here for about ten years, the lovely Lisa and I slightly more recently. As ever I had a pint of Pride so for a bit of variety I took a picture of the ceiling instead of the usual view from the balcony. 

We got to a new pub for us next, the Olde Watling. The had a good range of cask beers on including a mild, a lager and a wheat beer. I went for the wheat beer but it wasn't very good. It took me a while to work out if I didn't like it because of the wheat beer flavours, or if it was just off. By the time I'd decided it was off I'd drunk nearly half a pint so thought it was a bit late to take it back. Never mind, there was plenty more beer waiting for me. 

Our next pub was my favourite of the trip, the Old Jamaica Wine House. This was a Shepherd Neame pub and they're not brewery I'm that keen on. The pub interior made up for it though being nicely sectioned off into cosy little looks and crannies. I had a pint of Master Brew but after I'd ordered I spied they had something on called 'City Slickers'. The barman was kind enough give me a taster after seeing me eye up the hand pump and it seemed better than the usual offerings of Shep's. Apparently it's brewed specially for only two pubs. I'm not sure if it's brewed on the  pilot plant or if it's a re-badging of something else but it was pleasantly pale and hoppy and I wished I'd ordered it. 

And as it happened I got to. Leaving the Old Jamaica we bumped into my favourite brother-in-law heading home after a head days work to the lovely meal my sister had cooked him. He didn't have time to join us, but he did recommend we alter our plans to include the Cock and Wookpack. This turned out to be another Shepherd Neame pub. Now normally one Shep's pub on a pub crawl could be considered a misfortune but two is carelessness. In this case though it was welcomed as it was the other pub serving City Slicker so I had a pint. 

It was food time next, so despite the warning that it would be full of wankers in suits we went on to The Counting House. Another Fuller's pub, it was time for more Pride and the pie platter. And chips. And nachos. I was stuffed but Dan still managed to minesweep some more nachos that had been abandoned on the table next door. Like in The Old Bank of England we ended up on the balcony, and the view of the bar looked much the same, so I stuck with my policy of taking photos of the ceiling. 

Despite eating all the pies, and in Dan's case anything else within a three metre radius, the beer was starting to catch up with us. We managed to waddle on to the Lamb Tavern a Young's pub. It's in the middle of Leadenhall market, which is certainly different.  

I had a pint of the ordinary which went down surprisingly well but we'd definitely had enough by then so it was time to go home.

There seemed a lot more walking than normal in this pub crawl and we were knackered by the time we got home. In fact even the power of pork didn't revive us fully the next day and we ended up staying in. I think we may be getting soft and need to do some more training.