Fancy a brew?

No, not a cup of tea, what about 180 gallons of beer!

This was the question posed by Chris Voyce at the Bass Museum Brewery, Burton upon Trent when I enquired about purchasing beer for the 2003 Leicester Beer Festival. Why not come and brew your own festival special? Sounds good to me having not been involved with brewing beer since my mum brewed for my dad in the 70's with a Boots Home Brew kit.

And so the date was set for March 7^th; all I need now is a couple more volunteers. So, step in Keith and Nick Williams, Chairman and Social Secretary of Leicester CAMRA respectively. Everything is set up and we all start looking forward to it.

Standing at Leicester Station waiting for the 0735 train to Derby, Keith was already panicking thinking that I was going to miss the train because I only turned up 10 minutes before departure time, I don't know what time he had expected me! So off to Derby and upon arrival there, a stroll across the road for a "Full Monty" in the Station Diner for £3.20. Not bad at all.

Back to the Station and we board the 0857 Penzance train to Burton. Only we are told a train has failed ahead and we will be standing at Derby for a while. Great!

Eventually we get to Burton and walk to the brewery where Steve Wellington who is one of the brewers meets us and the introductions are made.

First, we decide that we are going to brew a porter at about 4.8 ABV having already decided it is going to be called St Margaret's after the church next to the festival.

The brewery is very small and part of a large museum complex. As we look out of the window, a lady is exercising one of the Shire horses nearby. There is also a vast collection of vintage Bass Brewery vehicles stretching back through the ages and a pub nearby.

Not everything is historic as we are given a set of electronic digital scales to weigh the malt. Having done this we assist with hoisting the sacks of malt up to the top floor where it will be ground into a course powder suitable for brewing. This is called grist.

After grinding, the grist is introduced to hot liquor (water) at the point where they go into the mash tun together. We are brewing 5 barrels, which is 180 gallons and so this takes time. As Steve continues to monitor the temperature of the liquor the place is filling up with steam. When the mash tun is filled we are told that we can have a break for 90 minutes whilst the mashing process takes place.

Off to the pub in the complex called the "Burton Bar". The range is mainly Bass as you would expect with a Black Sheep Bitter also available. We start with a pint of "E" at 4.8. The Burton Bar is also available for weddings and a wedding party arrived having just done the business upstairs. The beer is not too good so Nick takes it back and we are given a fresh pint after the barrel has been changed. Next we try a pint of 1744 and a bite to eat, very nice.

Back to the brewery and the wort is now to be transferred to the copper. Again this takes some time. After this has been done, we are given the job of digging all the spent malt out of the mash tun. The wort is now in the copper and is boiled with the addition of hops later. We now have another break, but it is raining heavily so we decide to have a look around the museum.  There is so much brewery history in there that this could take hours to explore. It is well worth a visit if you pick a fine sunny day.

Back to the brewery and the hops are weighed and then added to the copper.

Yet another break now. We decide to go to the Burton Bridge Inn, home of Burton Bridge to find it has just closed at 1415. Would you believe it? A quick change in direction and we visit the Devonshire Arms, another Burton Bridge pub near to the railway station and a choice of 5 or 6 Burton Bridge beers. I tried a pint of Bridge Bitter, which was in good form.

Back to the brewery and we now transfer the wort through a series of massive cooling elements to the fermenting tank where yeast is to be added to turn the sugars into alcohol. After this has all been done we bid goodbye to St Margaret's Porter. The next time we will see it is when Nick and I tap the casks at the beer festival.

We are invited back to the Burton Bar for one last drink. I couldn't resist trying the P2 Imperial Stout at 8.0. We then say farewell to Chris, Steve and Jo and head back to Burton Station.

Back at Derby we visited the Alexander Hotel and the Brunswick. Both had got beers on sale that I had ordered for the beer festival so I tried the Leek Staffordshire Gold in the Alex and the Beowulf Mercian Blade in the Brunswick before heading back to the station via the chip shop. Both beers were good, so I was pleased with my choices.

Another railway farce was just brewing at Derby as the 1900 London train was cancelled. We eventually departed on the 1920 to Loughborough where a visit to Loughborough Beer Festival was enjoyed for a couple of hours and just finished the day off nicely.

Hopefully we will be able to return next year and brew another festival special.

Andy Sales

This page last updated: April 15, 2011

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