Posts Tagged ‘brewery’
Ossett Brewery, West Yorkshire
Posted on: October 4, 2013
I popped over to Ossett earlier today for a chat with head brewer Paul, I’d been tweet-chatting off and on with @PaulSpencer1973 of Ossett Brewery, for a while so asked if it would be ok to come over and have a look around. Ossett Brewery was started in 1997 and Paul has been brewing there for 13 years, their current brew-kit came from a cider brewery in Sweden and is 40BBL in size.
As well as being a brewer with a passion for beer & brewing at Ossett, Paul also oversees three other Microbreweries under the Ossett group, quite a task!
The Copper & Grist case (Malt Hopper):
Another shot of the copper:
Ossett have 3 different types of fermenting vessel, 9 in total if my memory serves:
A slightly blurry shot of the mash Tun and underback:
Three of the Fermenters made by Moeschle:
The Mash Tun was just about to be dug out from the first of todays brews:
Their cask washing area:
This is their Microdat cask filler, it can cope with 80-casks per hour, and doses both Finings Adjunct (Auxiliary Finings) and Isinglass Finings:
This is the conditioning room at Ossett, quite a line-up of vessels, these are also made by Moeschle:
The very front left of this shot is their Isinglass tank where they mix and store it:
I took a few home-brewed beers for Paul hope he enjoys them and got a few back from him:
Do check out their website and their funky little promo vid.
It was interesting to find out that our own Head Brewer/Owner ‘Tony Gartland’ at Saltaire Brewery actually did some work experience at Ossett back when he was training at BrewLab before starting his own brewery.
Its been good meeting Paul and some of the guys and thanks very much for taking the time to show me round, Cheers
We just had a week in Scotland, tried a few beers along the way and also had a look-see at the www.lochnessbrewery.co.uk
After a couple of poor beer days in Pitlochry we went onto Inverness and the surrounding areas, going to the Benleva Hotel before seeing the brewery and having our lunch and a few beers at the Pub first where Steve is the Owner/Landlord, their beers were on fine form with a good selection of both their own and other cask ales.
Steve showed us round…
They started life at the back of the Hotel with a 2.5BBL brewery (now their brewery shop) but have moved a short distance away and are currently brewing on an 8BBL kit which will stretch to 10BBL once they upgrade their Mash Tun, it was all built by www.ObanAles.co.uk and looks like quality kit.
The relocated Brewery is in an old social club building:
The Barrels with various beers being aged:
This is Allan doing a bit of racking:
Nice to meet Steve & Allan, George their brewer (though they all brew) was out delivering in Edinburgh. I got to try a Barrel Aged Imperial Stout which was fantastic, look out for short-run bottle conditioned beers from Lochness as they are well worth a purchase.
You can follow the Brewery and Hotel on Twitter:
@LocknessBrewery
@BenlevaHotel
Also worthy of a mention is the savior that was ‘The Highland Beer Shop‘ a tiny place within shouting distance of where we stayed in Inverness with a really keen/helpful owner who sell a good range of interesting World/Local beers @HLBShop
Northern Craft Brewers American Pale Ale Competition at Saltaire Brewery
Saturday 13th April
The day started before 10.30 with a few jobs and setting up to do in the brewery, around 11am people started arriving the sun was shining and the pints were starting to be pulled. By 1pm all the competition beers had been signed in and entry fees paid so judging could start, our panel of 6 judges was pretty similar to last year with Zak & Rob beer-writer & beer-blogger a couple of CAMRA judges, a National Guild judge and of course Tony the Head Brewer and owner of Saltaire Brewery.
We had around 44 (42 turned up on the day) beers entered into the competition, thats no mean feat for a single style homebrew comp, entries from as far afield as the far North East to the South Coast & Plymouth… this year really has drawn together a great group of like-minded homebrewers, its been good to meet new people, put names to faces , catch up with old friends & swap and taste a few exceptional homebrewed beers.
This year we had 9 Handpump beers across two of the bars in the brewery, each handpull having a beer donated by a homebrewer… Now we’re not certain, but does any other homebrew event in the UK offer 2 fully stocked bars like this, we’d like to think not and we’d like to thank all of our brewers for brewing and getting their beers to us for the day… Fantastic Work!
Each brewer using American Hops in a range of beer styles from light to dark and 3.5 – 5.5% ABV.
All the beers were given for a donation, we suggested £2 a pint inline with what the Brewery normally charge on its BeerClub nights, we raised a massive £640 for the charities below:
- The Alzheimers Society
- Water Aid
- Yorkshire Donkey Sanctuary
- Macmillan Cancer Support
- Cancer Research UK
- Make-a-Dream
- Beagle Welfare
- Yorkshire Cat Rescue
The Hop Talk
While judging was underway we had lined up Andrew Whalley of Charles Faram Ltd to come along and keep us entertained with an interesting talk about hops. These are exciting times for hops and hop growing and Andrew had brought along a variety of hop samples, needless to say we made a big mess of rubbed hops all over the floor and got sticky hop hands 🙂
Andrew started out at York brewery so knows a thing or two about brewing. Thanks for the talk, I know a lot of us are keen to try the new English varieties in the Farams Hop Development program, Cheers
CharlesFarams on Twitter
@BritishHops
After much deliberation the results were announced for the American Pale Ale:
Kevin Bagshaw from Doncaster took first place:
2nd – Andy Black from Leeds
3rd – Steve Syson from Derby
4th – Giles Strother from Oxford
Louis Cowdroy from Harrogate got the Highly Commended
42 Beers entered Judges stated all were of a very high standard & they found it very hard to split 1st and 2nd place.
The Best Cask results, voted for with a show of hands:
‘Pray for Mojo’ by Matt Darcy from Harrogate took first place:
2nd Neil Gardener from Guisley
3rd Zak Avery from Leeds
Louis Cowdroy got the Honorable Mention
Sincere thanks to all who took part, brewed beer, entered the competition, turned up to drink beer and talk brewing… we have done our 8 charities proud, well done 🙂
Major thinks also go to Tony Gartland for yet again letting me organise a ‘Piss-up in a Brewery’, Shane Swindells for sorting all the competition entries, our excellent team of Judges, the brewery staff, our Barmen Dave & Neil (Even if Neil didn’t have the power of speech by the end of it!), and my wife Emma for running the upstairs Bar, Thanks for a cracking event and here’s to next year! Cheers
The full photo gallery is here…
Northern Craft Brewers APA Comp Saltaire Brewery 2013, a set on Flickr.
I’m still editing and updating this post… so hold yer horses, let me know what I did wrong 😉
Scans of Charity reply letters here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/pdtnc/sets/72157634103463615/with/9035519874/
A Brewday with Matt at Truefitt Brewing
It was last June during our wedding anniversary week in Whitby that me and Emma paid Matt a visit in his new Brewery, less than a year later Matt was coming up to his 100th brewed Gyle and had plans for brewing that beer the day I was there. He was not working full time last year, but now having stopped working for The Lions Den and taken on his first employee, he is out on his own.
Best laid plans! The day before our brewday a fused spur had blown and Matt had to cancel a brew doe to lack of hot liquor, so our brewday was Gyle #99 though I suppose in spirit it was still #100, it was to be a big 7%+ IPA hopped with recently released Mandarina Bavaria Hops from Germany.
I was on holiday, it felt wrong getting up this early but I got to Truefitt for 7.30am and found Matt had just started mashing in:
Run-off starts from the Mash Tun via the converted Keg Underback:
He said he was attaching the hop filter!:
The Copper Stand, this is where the last or late hops get to steep in the hot wort giving them time for the hop oils and flavours to infuse into the wort:
He aerates the wort via a sprayball while transferring to the fermenting vessel:
Matt is currently contract brewing for the one for the last breweries he worked at so was going some back-fills for us at Saltaire:
The Beer was named ‘Trembler’ after a previous and differently hopped brew of the same strength, its 7.4% and a Double IPA… I’m hoping to get my hands on some of this in bottle so I can add some tasting notes to the blog.
I had a good day with Matt and his new apprentice Jack, I hope to see Matt down at Saltaire sometime.
The last thing to note is that a Sausage & Tomato butty in Middlesbrough is at least 40p cheaper than in Shipley!!
You also can catch Matt on:
@TruefittBeers
Facebook/TruefittBeers
Some of his regular beers are:
All Bottle-Conditioned, Matt has chosen to hand bottle his beers to keep the full flavour, I’ve also got some other bottles from Truefitt Brewing to try soon 🙂
Click the Pics below to see what i thought of the beers 😉
We had a week in Inverness a few weeks back and I’ve only just got the photos off the camera a bit back.
Cracking beers 🙂 They are a fully Organic brewery and use a biomass fed boiler to heat their HLT, boiling with a 30BBL Gas-fired copper, they have both regular FV’s and DPV’s (Dual Purpose Vessels) do check them out, they do tours and Cask, keg, bottle all their own beer www.blackislebrewery.com
The Front of the brewery with the shop:
Some of the vessels:
The Thistle Wagon!
Mash Tun with grist delivery pipe coming in at the top, they grow there own organic Barley and it gets malted just down the road at Bairds in Inverness, how’s that for Freshness and control over process:
Bottling machine with Keg/Bottle carbonater in front left:
Filter on the LH and FV’s on the RH:
Gas-Fired Copper boiler with the flue going thru the roof:
I dare say we’ll be back, Inverness and the surrounding landscape was rather appealing 🙂
Just a couple of weeks after these photos were taken they had some new fermenters delivered so look out for some even more interesting beers from Black Isle….
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Yesterday a bunch of Leeds Home Brewers paid a visit to Ilkley Brewery where we were given a detailed tour by Director Chris Ives and sampled quite a bit of their Rhubarb Saison which was on draft.
The brewery equipment, a major investment, was manufactured by Moeschle in Germany and installed by ABACUS Fabrications, Halifax.
The brewery currently consists of 5x 20BBL fermenters & one 30BBL conical DPV (dual purpose vessel), along with mash tun and copper of the same capacity, we hear that further expansion is planned too with lots of interesting beery ideas too 🙂
The Brewery is situated at the bottom of Ashlands Road in Ilkley:
Its a modern compact industrial unit:
Due to space constraints their Mash Tun sits directly on top of the Hot Liquor Tank, Chris explained that this caused some issues initially while getting used to the new equipment as heat from the HLT was warming the Mash Tun and making the mash hotter near the bottom of the Mash-bed:
Chris talking to Pete @pchindle at the bar, most of Ilkley’s beers are fermented using the Thwaites strain of yeast a very popular strain for many northern Microbreweries, their Saison is obviously not Thwaites yeast, it is instead fermented with yeast from Dupont:
A couple of their 20 barrel fermenting vessels:
Rob @Hopzine chatting to Matt @braukerl with the 30 Barrel DPV (Dual Purpose Vessel) in the background which was hissing away venting co2 while it fermented more Rhubarb Saison, above is the Malt Loft & Grist Case (Malt hopper), malt is transferred to the Mash tun via an Auger and Hydrated as it flows into the tun, if my memory serves they mash in at a ratio of 2.6-2.8 litres of liquor to every kilogram of malt and vary their mashing temperatures and liquor treatment for the type of beer they are brewing:
Myself, Ian @lugsy51, Matt @braukerl with his GF’s father sniffing beer… as we do:
More Beer Geekery now with @Broadfordbrewer:
I’m sure we all really appreciate Chris going out of his way to host a very interesting tour and taking the time to explain their brewing equipment and process, its nice to hear the commitment and excitement he brings to one of our most progressive (yet still traditional) local breweries.
Lets hope they enjoy judging our homebrewed competition entries, someone could be the proud winner of a Brewday at Ilkley, entries must be in by the 14th July – Leedshomebrew.blogspot.co.uk
Thanks for a great day and plentiful Siberia Rhubarb Saison!! 🙂
Photo Credits are all thinks to my Wife 🙂
AG#81 – Olicana Rutilus
Posted on: June 10, 2012
- In: Brewing
- 5 Comments
Olicana Rutilus – This is my entry to the Ilkley Brewery / Leeds Homebrewers competition, an American Red/Amber/Brown style beer at 1038.
I’m doing a number of firsts for me with this brew:
- The first time using of my Plate Chiller which I’ve had for ages with intent to use!
- The first time I’ve done a 20 minute total boil time!
- The first time I’ve tried Hop-Bursting!
- The First time I’ve used Apollo hops!
Fermentables:
Lager Malt
Carapils (Weyermann)
Munich Malt I (Weyermann)
Chocolate Malt
Cara Munich Type III
Hops:
Columbus
Apollo
Apollo
Final Volume: 12 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.038
Final Gravity: 1.010
Alcohol Content: 3.6% ABV
Total Liquor: 17.6 Litres
Mash Liquor: 4.9 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 % (got over 81%)
Bitterness: 35 EBU
Colour: 39 EBC
Yeast: Safale US-05
Today’s Malts:
First run out of the Plate chiller (Heat Exchanger), with my second Solar Project pump:
Ye Olde mini-Mash Tun:
First Wort Hops, Columbus, with a THBF calc Mild profile for my liquor treatment:
Apollo hops, I’m using up the dregs, still sticky as owt and stinky:
Oh… Nooo!!! Hot Side Aeration! Recirc to Sanitise:
Flameout Hops:
This was actually a pretty quick brewday, didn’t quite hit my 1038 OG and got 1035-ish, this will be down to me guessing and 5% boil-off, it was actually a lot less as I collected 14 Litres in the FV rather than the planned 12 Litres. So something to adjust for next time I do a 20min boil. The break material formed in the bucket after cooling, I back-flushed the Plate Chiller and set it on a recirc for about half an hour with hot clean water.
Its been a long day as I’ve bottled 50-odd bottles of Nit Wit after brewing, then cleaned the FV and fridge from the WLP400 mess!!
I’ll post the full recipe details after judging 😉
Here’s Dave’s brewday blog of his entry.
And this is Neil’s Blog of his entry.
*14th Jun ’12 – Dry hopping time 🙂
Apollo hops whizzed up in a clean blender, about 4g per litre, a tip from @dredpenguin and his blog A Beer on the Downs though I didn’t puree mine I just dry blitzed them:
Dry hops tipped on the yeast head and stirred in, I’ll leave at current temp for a couple of days then stir again and drop the temperature to 17c then 11c for about a week before crashing it down to 4c to settle the hop debris out:
*Bottled 21st Jun ’12 – with 60g white sugar in 13 litres of beer.
I arranged to go over to Dark Horse Brewery the other week to buy some local beer for a family member, a 12-pack of Hetton Pale bottles and the brewer, Richard, was kind enough to let me have some quality looking branded glassware.
Again it is nice to get another brewer’s perspective on brewing and beer and find out about how they do things and the process they follow to get a glorious Yorkshire pint of beer into the drinkers hand.
Richard runs a 15bbl plant at 10bbl brew-length which used to belong to Sharp’s in Cornwall, he treats his hard Dales Limestone water from his own bore-hole to soften it, ferments with his house yeast (I think he said it was originally Holts Brewery yeast) in square fermenters before transferring to conditioning tanks before racking to cask, all brewery effluent is treated on-site with a reed bed system… very ethical and must save a fortune long term.
The Brewery building:
A section of the Reed bed:
I won’t write about the beer as others with more eloquence have already done it for me, just click the links below, and do try a pint from the Dark Horse Brewery when you see it.
Hetton Pale Ale – paganum.wordpress.com
Yorkshire’s Perfect Pint – Craven Herald
Hetton Pale Ale – Good People Eats
Hetton Best Bitter – paganum.wordpress.com
Dark Horse Brewery – YourRound
Dark Horse Brewery – Quaffale
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