The brewery was started in 2011 by Lee Byatt, owner/head brewer. His wife Shelley and co-director joined in 2014, to help with the increased work load. We haven’t looked back since. We work well together, as we have different skills to offer the business. We have grown the business and moved into new larger premises in 2016 to create a 12 barrel brewery and brewhouse bar. This was a huge undertaking, but being in our new home makes all the hard work worth it.
We have a 12 barrel brew length and brew three times per week. We continue to add to our customer base each week and have increased our capacity to suit. It is not just the production of beer that has to be considered, but also having a fermenting vessel available and the right number of casks to allow for turnaround time in trade and have enough to rack future brews, and so we find ourselves taking on more and more casks to cope with the growing demand.
Brewing malt starts its life in the fields as barley, which has historically been the crop of choice in brewing in this country. Specialist maltsters trick the barley into thinking it is spring by steeping it in warm water, and so it starts to germinate. At a certain point, the grains are cured in huge kilns to stop the germination process. The starches contained within the grains will provide the food for our yeast cells later in the process.
When treated the barley is known as “brewers malt”, and comes in to us in crushed form. The brewer is looking for the enzymes from the malt, which break down the cell walls and make it easier to extract the sugars which will form the basis of the “sweet wort”. This is often known as the brewer’s breakfast, and it is always a treat to taste the brew at this stage! It beats milk! The sugars will provide food for the yeast at a later stage.
Most of the malt we use is a pale version of Maris Otter. For darker beers we add roasted malt in varying degrees. Coventry Bitter uses Crystal Malt for a darker colour and sweeter flavouring. Our Urban Red contains (among other things) a touch of Black Malt, but not too much, as it can be quite bitter. Adding a touch of wheat malt will help with head retention later on.
Underback creates a centrifuge ensuring any solids are left whirling around in the middle while the sweet wort is transferred to the copper where it is boiled for 90 minutes. At this stage we will add the hops. We use a variety of hops from the UK and abroad to give us the characteristics we are looking for in a particular beer. We use the whole hop flower which gives better results. Hops can be used for bittering, aroma or flavour, or a combination.
They can be added at varying stages in the process, or even added to the cask during the racking process. We need to extract the essential oils from the lupulin glands of the hop flower, which help preserve the beer later in the process.
Boiling also sterilises the beer and removes a large amount of protein which occurs naturally in the malt husks. A certain amount of protein helps head retention, but too much will make the beer cloudy.
Product Purchasing
If you’re interested in buying some of our delicious ale either in bottle form or in a keg then visit our beer page. You’ll also find a huge range of other products such as hats, iPad cases, t-shirts plus many more.
Two types of finings are added to the beer to encourage the yeast and protein to flocculate (grouping together in large clumps) and in doing so leaves a bright and well polished beer in the cask.
It’d be fair to say that we are more than passionate about our beer, striving to be the best craft brewer in the area and brew beers with a wow factor that people really enjoy and talk about and ultimately come back for more.
structure in the road you will know you are not too far away (turn left and immediately left again). Then, once you have turned through a 90°right hand bend, turn right into the estate, we are 100 yards down on the RHS, unit 7-8.
