Posts Tagged ‘craft brewer’
Mallinsons Brewery, Huddersfield
Posted on: October 21, 2011
Today I drove the 50-or-so minutes over to see Tara & Elaine at Mallinsons Brewery in Huddersfield.
If you’ve never heard of or had a Mallinsons beer you’ll be sure to enjoy them as they make some really well balanced beers, nothing too mental and they hit a lovely hoppy-middle-ground… Something like the Beer equivalent of the Goldilocks-Zone.
Have a look down their rather long list of brewed beers on their website & Check the brewery installation photos too.
Out of their beers I’ve had they have always been superb, bags of flavour & aroma, and a nice amount of body, and all hand-filled & bottled-conditioned (even veggie & vegan friendly) and they even sacrifice their office space to lovingly warm condition them before a cold conditioning phase.
Tara and Elaine started life as school teachers, Before starting the brewery Tara was experimenting with small homebrew batches making beer with Malt Extract & Hops before doing a 3-4 day Brewlab course and a Mossbrew course, then the first brew was done with David Porter… after that they were in at the deep end! Doing 2 brews per week was all that one person could manage with sales / racking and deliveries, during this time Elaine was still working in her old job to help pay Tara a wage while the business found its feet. I think they’ve found their feet now and the all girl team is now three strong with Elaine now brewing too (When Tara is not around!).
They now brew four times per week to keep up to demand, a success story from Homebrewer to well respected commercial Microbrewery.
Here are a few snaps of the brew-house, this is the 6-Barrel Copper – Mash Tun – Hot Liquor Tank, all wood-clad / built & installed by David Porter:
Another view of the kit:
The 4 Stainless steel Fermenting vessels:
Sterilised bottles ready to be filled:
The simplistic approach to hand bottling, straight from un-fined casks, I thought it would be a bit more technical than this so its nice to see things kept simple & straight forward:
Thanks again for taking the time to talk to me about brewing and process, it is always very nice to see how others work. 🙂
Craft Brewers Association 1st
Posted on: September 18, 2010
- In: Brewing
- 2 Comments
Craft Brewers Association 2010 competition held at the Copper Dragon Brewery, my ‘Over-run By Yanks v1.2’ Won the Strong Ale class 🙂
Its a two Batch day, I’m doing 12 litres a piece and actually taking my time over it. I decided to Mash then Sparge and collect, then Mash then Sparge and collect followed by 2 boils.
AG#13 – Bloody Nelson
Fermentables:
Golden Promise 2090g
Wheat Malt 260g
German Cara Red 260g
Hops:
Nelson Sauvin 60 mins 0 lbs. 0.4 oz 10g (FWH)
Nelson Sauvin 15 mins 0 lbs. 0.4 oz 10g
Nelson Sauvin 0 mins 0 lbs. 0.4 oz 20g (I’ve doubled this from 10g as the hops were smelling good)
Final Volume: 12 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 4.7% ABV
Total Liquor: 18.8 Litres
Mash Liquor: 6.5 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 34 EBU
Colour: 15 EBC
The Grains, golden promise pale malt, wheat malt, carared malt, 1 tsp gypsum:
New toy with little Brewing calculator on it, mashed in @ 67.7c:
FWH & 1 Tsp Gypsum:
Floaters:
12g of Nottingham Yeast:
20min steep of flame Out hops:
Rehydrated Notts yeast within 1 degree of my wort temp:
All put to bed now, lots of yeast for the 12L length, should get going pretty quick.
I’m not too sure if the CaraRed Malt has done its stuff, looked a bit straw-like in the boiler, will see better at bottling.
Near as damn it hit my OG just a point or two out. 🙂
AG#14 – Black Promise
Fermentables:
Golden Promise 1880g
Wheat Malt 260g
Black Malt 100g
Crystal Malt 100g
Hops:
Northdown 60 mins 5g (FWH)
Whitbread Golding 60 mins 5g (FWH)
Fuggle 60 mins 5g (FWH)
Whitbread Golding 20 mins 20g
Home Grown Fuggle 10 mins 21g
Final Volume: 12 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.044
Final Gravity: 1.012
Alcohol Content: 4.1% ABV
Total Liquor: 18.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 5.9 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 75 %
Bitterness: 36 EBU
Colour: 86 EBC
Grain weighed out, golden promise pale malt, black malt, crystal malt, wheat malt, 1 tsp gypsum, 1/2 tsp Calcium Chloride:
New toy with little Brewing calculator on it, mashed in @ 66c:
Good deep colour, though tastes a bit mild I was hoping for more of the Black malt flavours:
FWH:
WGV going in!:
Home grown Fuggles going in:
Near enough for me:
All done, I just hope the Black malt comes through with the flavour as well as the colour. 🙂
**Bottled Bloody Nelson 27th Nov ’09 with 50g of DSM
**Black Promise *Bottled 3rd Dec ’09 with 55g of DSM
