Brewday at Great Heck Brewing Co.

As I mentioned in my aspirations for 2010 blog and with a view to a possible future in brewing, I've been keen to get some hands on brewing experience for a while now, to help better understand all aspects of brewing and what life as a brewer would be like. I've been really grateful to get a few offers from different brewers recently including Denzil from Great Heck Brewing Co, who was very supportive of myBrewerytap from the beginning and who'd I'd got to know at the SIBA annual conference.

Brewers tend to start brewing early and so I was up at 5.45am to drive over to Great Heck a picturesque small village out in the flatlands east of Wakefield toward Goole, and roughly an hour away from Huddersfield.

The first part of the brewing process and so first job of the day was to 'mash in', meaning to mix the malt and liquor (water) into a porridge like soup in order to extract the sugars from the malt. I was glad to find out that the brewery had an upper level and a grist case (hopper) to help mash in as I knew this meant a lot less lifting work. This second floor is also the malt and hop store at Great Heck and thankfully was fully stocked meaning there wouldn't be a load of shouldering heavy malt sacks up a ladder to start the day.

We would be brewing one of Great Hecks regular and most popular beers "Dave" (Dark And Very Enjoyable) a 3.8% moderately hopped dark session beer. This meant mashing in a few different malts, including some chocolate malt to give 'Dave' its dark color. The 'mash' was then left to stew while Denzil made us a very welcome fry up.

After breakfast the next job was to run off the now sweet liquor or 'wort' (containing all the necessary sugars to create the desired amount of alcohol) into the brewing kettle or 'copper' via the underback, which is there to prevent any detritus from the mash ending up in the kettle.

I've been on plenty of brewery tours in the past but I was enjoying seeing the actual brew process in action; watching closely and trying to understand a seemingly endless swapping of hoses and switching on and off of pumps. I was assured that while initially daunting these processes in the brewery soon become second nature.

Once the transfer was complete, and the wort at a rolling boil I was tasked with sorting out the hops for the brew. I was looking forward to this and enjoyed grabbing handfuls of the pungent sticky compacted hop cones out of their foil bags, breaking them up and weighing out the correct amount required. I know they're just part and parcel of the brew process and maybe taken for granted by many brewers but to this novice at least there's something really alluring about hops, they're probably the most visually appealing part of the process and their aroma while recognizable in raw form is often also noticeable in both the flavour and aroma of the 'finished' beer. These particular hops (Pilgrim) were no different and triggered off memories of beers I've enjoyed in the past (but annoyingly couldn't quite place.)

After the hops were added to the kettle and the boil left to finish it was on to the hard but necessary work of digging out the spent grain from the mash tun. This job is obviously one of the reasons why brewers don't mind having apprentices in, but I'd been looking forward to getting stuck in and finding out what these tasks would be like.

As expected it's hard work, (especially with puny wrists) but I eventually dug all the grain out and managed to wrestle the filled sacks out to the yard, where they would wait for the local farmer to collect. As the day wore on the filled sacks made a warm and comfy seat for me to idle a few minutes away in the sun while waiting for various processes to complete!

Lunch was a welcome break and Denzil knocked me up a sandwich which was gratefully washed down with Great Heck's, "Stormin Norman" straight from a hand pump rigged up in the kitchen. The 6.5% hoppy pale ale went down a treat and helped fuel the ongoing lively conversation as the brew day progressed.

After lunch and while we waited for the boil to finish Denzil gave a short master class in cask washing. This is by common consent the least favourite job in the brewery, probably down to its monotonous nature. I was expecting to spend at least part of the day doing it, but thankfully there weren't many casks needing washing and Denzil seemed to be enjoying himself so I left him to it!

Once the kettle had finished its boil it was time to start the transfer of the hot wort (now infused with hops) over to one of the fermenters. Before this could happen I watched on as Denzil performed more necessary processes of switching hoses, re-circulating water, pumps on, pumps off etc.. He then cooled the kettle down and It was once again time for me to experience one of the dirtier jobs on offer, namely scrubbing the kettle down, (which meant getting in it) and removing all the soggy spent hops by hand. This waste from the process was also left out for the farmer, apparently it's "not good for much" but is left out as part of the deal whereby the farmer gets loads of free grain to feed his cattle, which seems fair to me.

It was 4pm by this time and as the brew day was more or less complete (with just a bit more cleaning to be done) and it was time for me to head back home. The day went just as I'd hoped with plenty of laughs a lot of questions answered (and advice gathered) and a bit of hard work, in a very friendly environment.

Denzil was a top host and I'd urge anyone reading to seek out Great Heck's beers, they don't profess to be at the cutting edge of British brewing, but Great Heck's beers are by no means 'traditional' or 'boring'. They're brewing beer for the best reasons, in that it's beer that "they like to drink' and their beers cover the whole gamut of styles from pale session ales through to full bodied stouts and hoppy wheat beers.

I know Denzil is on with the long process of creating decent bottles, which we'll have on myBrewerytap as soon as he does...

For some great background on Great Heck Brewing Co check out www.Beerreviews.co.uk's meet the brewer interview here

Below are some pictures I took on the day.

Spring Quarter 52 week beer club

We are now shipping the spring quarter 52 week beer club cases to members. If you're not aware, the 52 week beer club is a great way to sample some of the beers featured on myBrewerytap.

Members receive 52 beers over the course of a year (13 bottles quarterly) and we also include tasting notes and complimentary gifts ( this month there's some delicious sauce from The Curry Sauce Company, while stocks last).

I'm really excited by this quarters case as it contains some fantastic beers from around the country including the much sought after and multi award winning “Jaipur” by Thornbridge brewery, the 2008 World Beer Awards Pale/Blond category, winner “Avalanche” from Fyne Ales and the excellent"Ginger" an alcoholic Ginger beer from the brilliant (and again multi award winning) Williams Brothers brewery.

There’s also a bottle of the up and coming (and hard to find) Crown Brewery's “Unpronounceable IPA” a delicious 7.0% US style super hoppy beer and one of my personal favourites.

Membership of the club costs £79.99 (+ one off shipping charge of £5.99) which we think is great value and a great way to try lots of beers which you can't get in your supermarket.

If you're not ready to commit to the club yet as a special offer there is currently 15% off a mixed case (same selection as 52wbc) for a limited time only. Just enter the code: BEER0610 when checking out.

A full list of this quarters beers can be seen below, you can join the 52 week beer club here

Brewlab "Start up Brewing" course

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week were spent doing the three day "start up brewing" course at Brewlab in Sunderland. My brother a friend and I had booked the course in January, a decision we'd based around a desire to start up a brewery project of our own and make the kind of beer we want to drink.

Monday morning started early, we needed to be in Sunderland for 9.30am so we were off by 6.00am to pick up in Brighouse before making our way up the A1. Obviously 6.00am starts will be something I'll need to get used to if I want a future in brewing but it felt very early to me especially as the clock had only just gone forward the night previously.

We made it to the location for the course in Sunderland with 10 minutes to spare and settled into the classroom to meet our fellow 'would-be' brewers also on the course. There were about 20 people on the course, all at different stages of planning their future in brewing; some nearly ready to start up, some toying with the idea, some just investigating but all with a shared love of beer. It was nice to see that the students weren't all men either, with about 30% of the students female.

Mondays course was split into a number of different modules, starting with a brief overview of the brewing process, followed by brewery design and layout, and Ingredients, water and yeast. After lunch we covered Ingredients, malt and hops, and then finished the afternoon with a useful session on business start up. By 5pm we were all ready to get stuck into some proper R&D and so headed with the tutors to Fitzgeralds to sample some local beers. I was pretty tired by this point and not feeling particularly sociable but joined in a few conversations and relaxed a bit after a few pints. We ended up over the road in the Wetherspoons for some food and a pint or two from the surprisingly poor selection on offer.

Tuesday started with a frantic march across town to try and get to the business centre on time. The mornings subjects covered the brewing processes in more detail including Recipe formulation , fermentation and racking, fining and beer conditioning amongst others. The tutors were very knowledgeable and accommodating but went into the science a little bit too much in my opinion especially considering the length of the course. They often went off rambling on chemical reactions/processes etc.. when a simple explanation would have sufficed. Having said that everyone's queries were answered (eventually), it was all good solid stuff, and a good insight into what the longer courses Brewlab offers would entail.

I wasn't particularly looking forward to the the afternoons subjects: Marketing and publicity and Tax and Excise/Profit and Loss but was surprised at how interesting they were. These modules served to bring home the reality of running a brewery and as the tutors said themselves; their job in some ways is to put you off starting a brewery so you won't go into it without realising the pitfalls, hard work and difficulties every start up brewery faces.

5.00pm saw us off with the tutor for more after course R&D (ha, ha), and this time we walked the short distance to the Clarendon on Bull Lane, a pub which while not officially a "brewerytap" enjoys a symbiotic relationship with the small 2.5bbl brewery which operates in the cellar. This was much more my sort of pub, good beer (well some of it), traditional in every sense of the word and with no pretences. Everyone was starting to relax a bit now and as we got to know our fellow course mates better, the conversation and drinks started to flow.

The final morning of the course, and the plan was a 7am start, to walk across Town, get some breakfast and be at the business centre in time to meet our minibus at 8am. Unfortunately nowhere in Sunderland city centre is open before 8.30am, which along with the number of unused retail units is an obvious symptom of the unmissable decline which permeates the whole city. Newcastle this is not.

We were all feeling a bit worse for ware but looking forward to the days itinary of brewery tours/visits. 1st up was a visit to the Bull Lane Brewery we had been in less than 24hrs earlier. This was the smallest brewery we were to visit, a 2.5bbl set up and a real working brewery, with a minimum of modern efficiencies. What really struck me though was the enthusiasm and love for brewing of the brewer (whose name i can't remember embarrassingly).

Next stop was Wylam Brewery a successful rural brewery based in old farm buildings about 30 minutes away in the minbus. Our tutor Chris did the tour and explained how the brewery had evolved from a 5 bbl set up a few years a go into the large and very busy 20bbl set up it now was.
It was useful to see how the brewery had made use of the space it had and the ingenuity they'd employed to help with brewing processes (a reccurring theme on many brewery visits i've been on)

The last brewery tour was another 45 minutes away at Allendale Brewing Company, where Tom Hick has set up a succesful brewery after completing a masters in brewing at Sunderland University. I've had Allendales beers before and always liked them and they were one of the first breweries to list on myBrewerytap. An informative Q&A session with Tom followed and we got a good feeling for the challenges the brewery and its local pub face in the current climate.

After returning to the business centre the last module of the course was a flavour and beer quality assessment session, which saw us learning about different aromas/tastes and studying how to identify 'off' characteristics of beer . This was a really great way to finish the course, and probably the module I enjoyed most.

All that remained after receiving our certificates (woo!) and swapping email addresses was to make our way across town, gather our belongings and make the journey home down the A1 to Yorkshire.

In summary I would say that this is a course anyone who wants to take their interest in beer to the next level would thoroughly enjoy. The Tutors were knowledgeable, varied in opinion and engaging, and i left feeling like I'd had a lot of questions answered.

We now have a much clearer idea of what is involved in brewing and how we are going to approach our project.

Watch this space!

Brewlab course details are available here