How to build a brewery – brewery tours for the win!
Having decided to upgrade the nano brewery to a full size brewery, I needed to know where on earth to start with our own brewery build! When I passed my Certificate in Brewing (Craft) Beer from the Institute of Brewing in 2018, I had spent an intense week’s revision at Bath Alesin Keynsham.
At the time there was a tour of the brewery. It was very high tech and automated with no hoses, but fixed stainless steel pipework everywhere. BEER GEEKERY ALERT! They use a reverse osmosis machine to filter the water supply to strip water of all pathogenic microorganisms. Moreover, the semipermeable membrane can remove heavy metals such as lead, manganese, arsenic, and asbestos, making it safe to drink. They then build up the water profile according to the beer style with salts and acid.
pH is crucial water chemistry in brewing. The higher the pH, the greater the alpha extraction from hops giving a bitterness. The lower the pH the better the enzyme activity in fermentation and the healthier the yeast. This was the reasoning behind our plans to have a reverse osmosis machine on the farm. It will filter the bore hole water before filling 2 x 10,000 litre holding tanks for the 25HL brewery.
How to find a brewery build pit crew – pubs & planning...
Once we had found, fallen in love with, and moved into Patson Hill Farm, we got Rose Engineering on board to design the building to house the brewery. They also agreed to handle the planning permission. This was a huge help as we didn’t realise just how long the planning process would be. It was incredibly frustrating. We completed ecological, topological and hydrographic surveys prior to submission, but were met with a barrage of requests for more and more surveys one after another (not altogether – that would be too sensible!)
One of them was for a badger survey. This showed there was evidence of sets but they weren’t active. A second badger survey request, in the same woodland that the Mangalitza pigs were now living in, arrived. There is a law against humans killing badgers but nothing about pigs killing badgers, especially ones that don’t live in the area surveyed.
Mangalitza pigs have curly coats and are often mistaken for sheep!
We now had our brewery build experts on board, but we really needed some brewery design and manufacturers. We met 6PD by chance in a pub in Sherborne one evening. After a particularly long day travelling, I was keen to get out with Steve and relax. Sam, their MD, wore a hoodie which said 'Stainless Steel Fabricators' on the back. Steve asked him if he made breweries and then we chatted for ages about the possibility of getting one of their British made stainless steel brewhouses.
Pit crew assembled! Onto the next steps...
From this conversation, Sam took me to see Jem at Cheddar Ales as his kit was a 6PD semi-automatic 25 HL. Since then he’s upgraded to automatic. Jem was friendly and showed me how he used the equipment on a brew day. I also did a reccy on their lab room, knowing I’d be up for lab training shortly. I purchased beer from their tap room (naturally!) and left a bottle of red for Jem and his missus.
So, we had met our brewhouse makers and commissioned Rose Engineering to design and build the building to house it – hurrah! With lots of spinning plates, I knew I needed to ground myself and keep developing new recipes on the Braumeister in the farmhouse utility room. That way, when the brewery build was complete, I’d be ready and raring to go with a range of tastes and styles!
