Super Brew Day

Brunswick Inn, Derby 2008

Tuesday February 5th 2008 - Some called it Super Tuesday American Elections - Shrove Tuesday - to Leicester CAMRA Beer Festival Committee and others - it was Brew Tuesday!

There were 7 of us standing at Leicester Station for the 0735 train to Derby and by 0815 we were knocking on the door of The Brunswick Inn. A bit early for a drink - no this was to work and we were greeted at the front door by Graham Yates, The Brunswick Licensee and Graham Giblet, Head Brewer of Everards.

We started in a civilised way with a tray of bacon to make bacon butties and tea and coffee. A brief chat then as to what we were doing for the day. We were brewing a Wheat beer which is a trial brew for a new beer Everards will launch in Summer 2008 called Hazy Daze. The test brew will be launched at Leicester Beer Festival and further production if successful will take place in Leicester. We were given a health & Safety brief and then that was it - roll your sleeves up and away we go.

The Brunswick has a tower brewery which consists of liquor tanks and malt miller on the top floor, brewery and FV's on the middle and conditioning tanks in the cellar along with cold storage. All three floors are linked with a spiral metal staircase. The pub also has its own well, although the water cannot be used for brewing it can be used for cooling through the paraflow.

First job was to weigh the malt and get it through the miller. This was given to Keith Satterly and Philip Tiplady. The rest of us went to the brewery ready for the "strike in" where the liquor is introduced to the malt. Once complete we had to wait for a while for it to "mash" in.

As with previous brewery days, this was no different and in no time we were unpaid brewery hands for the day! Mick Collins, Kelvyn Martin and myself were given the job of "racking" off 40 firkins of Brunswick White Feather into casks. This was to free the conditioning tanks for a brew done the week before by some Everards Landlords which in turn would free an FV for our beer later. Hope it all makes sense - it does after a while!

After an hour or so it was back up to the brewery to transfer the "wort" from the Mash Tun to the Copper and boil it with the Mount Hood hops, which had been carefully weighed by Mr Satterly.

A commendable performance saw Keith Williams clean and scrub the FV's but also clean and scrub the Mash Tun after Richard Bailey had done the hard work by digging out the spent grain.

At last a pint, after 3 hours or so smelling the wonderful aromas of malt and hops it was time for a pint in the pub. This however didn't last long  and we were back in the brewery soon afterwards.

Lastly the brew was transferred to the fermenting vessel and this meant that I had the task of digging the hops out of the copper. But the best was still to come when Keith Williams again was a sucker for punishment and was bundled into the copper to scrub and clean that too.

A great day was had by all and thanks to the two Grahams and James the brewer at the Brunswick. We will see what Hazy Daze tastes like when we crack the casks open at Leicester Beer Festival in March.

Post brewing day note - The beer will not be appearing at Leicester BF due to not being within the specification expected.

Andy Sales.

This page last updated: May 28, 2008

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