Brakspear brewery tour with Reading CAMRA

Thanks to Reading CAMRA, Quinten Taylor and the Clifton Arms in Caversham for the opportunity to join a trip to Witney for a Brakspear /Wychwood Brewery tour on Saturday 23 November, 2019.

Quinno's joining instructions mention 'We will be departing from the car park at the Clifton Arms in Caversham at 12 noon sharp - we won't wait around for stragglers, so make every effort to be a few minutes early. The pub will be open to prior to departure from 11am. As they have been instrumental in helping us secure this tour, please consider getting drink before or after the trip to show your appreciation.'

Following these instructions gave me a chance to drink a half pint of Brakspear Gravity (recently rebadged Brakspear Bitter), before boarding the minibus in the pub's car park.
Departure was delayed until 11.10am but one missing member failed to arrive. About 20 minutes later Quinno received a phone call to say that the latecomer had seen our minibus driving off from a short distance away. An otherwise uneventful journey, via Swinford toll bridge, resulted in our arrival at the brewery by 12.15pm.

An iconic, carved Hobgoblin figure stands at the public entrance to the brewery and taproom.

We entered and ordered beers from the bar in the cellar taproom. The bar prices charged here are reasonable eg £1.70 for half pint of Brakspear Gravity.

Chris, our tour guide, would later tell us that the taproom has been open to the public for 9 months and that the circular floor of the original Brakspear mash tun is now repurposed as a feature of the taproom floor (photo above).

The taproom was busy but I found a stool to sit on facing Quinno (photo).

When it was time for our tour, we headed for the bar reserved for tour groups, passing some members who would rejoin the main group after finding space in the overflow seating area for the taproom.

The passage leading to the tour group bar passes some framed original pastel artwork used for subtly advertising Brakspear beer.

As part of the tour, Chris poured us our choice of beer before giving an introductory talk about the history of the brewery.
Brewing started at the Eagle Brewery premises in Witney in 1831 as Clinch & Co.. In those days there was also a maltings and a stables associated with the brewery. In 1961 Courage bought Clinch & Co for its pub estate and closed down the brewery. In 1983 Paddy Glenny rented part of the site and established Glenny Brewery. Chris Moss took over and changed the name to Wychwood Brewery in 1989. Beers were named after Wychwood Forest myths and legends with Hobgoblin as the best known ruby beer.
The brewery was taken over by Refresh UK, a subsidiary of Marston's in 2002. Marston's bought Refresh and Wychwood Brewery outright in 2008. Jon Tillson was appointed Head Brewer in 2018.

The Cross Keys, Witney, was the original home of Brakspear Brewery. In 1769, Robert Brakspear became the pub landlord and this is where Brakspear Bitter was first brewed. In 1779, Robert and his uncle Richard Hayward moved to the Bell Street brewery in Henley-on-Thames. in 1812, the brewery moved to New Street in Henley.

In 2002, Brakspear moved away from direct brewing and its beers were brewed under licence at Wychwood Brewery in Witney. Vessels including the top of the copper and the double drop fermenting vessels were moved from Henley to Witney.
Chris mentioned that bottling and kegging for Wychwood and Brakspear beers has been done at Marston's in Burton-upon-Trent for some years but that more recently casking has also moved there. A tanker takes beer from the brewery to Burton leaving at 4am.

Chris led us into the brewery for the tour.

Standing in front of the white grist cage, Chris pointed out some other equipment including the red roller mill. The whirlpool is on the left of the photo above. He explained that separate yeast strains are used for Wychwood and Brakspear beers which are stored separately.

We walked to the other side of the building and Chris showed us some Isinglass from Brazilian lumpfish that is used for fining beer. There is a framed poster, showing the layout of the brewery. Chris also passed round small containers of different malts to taste and hops to sniff.

We were standing near the wooden steps to a platform around the Copper which has an open chimney above. The next stage was to climb the steps for a view of the rest of the brewery.

A large square shaped vessel at the back on the left is the Hot Liquor Tank. The nearer, circular vessel is the mash tun. Chris explained the brewing process and mentioned that the capacity of the Copper is 29,000 pints and that there are 10 brews per week.

The final stage was to see the Double Drop fermentation system used exclusively for Brakspear beers.

Chris explained that the wort is fed from the copper to the whirlpool and then via a heat exchanger to the circular top fermenting vessel where it rests for four hours. It is then allowed to drop, by gravity, into the square vessels below for the final fermentation period. The drop process adds some oxygen and also allows some sediment to be left behind in the top vessel.

The final part of our visit was an opportunity to taste a variety of bottled beers produced at Wychwood brewery. Chris opened a pair of bottles which were passed around our group to pour and then taste and offer comments about the flavours and ingredients. On this occasion, we tasted Arrowaine (3.6% ABV Mild), Brakspear Oxford Gold (4.6% ABV), Imperial Red (4.7% ABV brewed with Scottish rolled oats), King Goblin (6.6% ABV brewed with chocolate, crystal and pale malts), Black Wych (5% ABV also brewed with Scottish rolled oats) and Bah Humbug! (5% ABV spiced with cinnamon and cloves).
We learned that many of the distinctive label designs for Wychwood beers like Hobgoblin and Black Wych are the work of artist Ed Org.
There are various historic mementos in the brewery tour bar.

Chris told us about Piledriver, a beer named after Status Quo's fifth album. The giant label is signed by members of the band.

We also heard about the framed photo of the occasion when David Cameron presented Barack Obama with a bottle of Hobgoblin in 2011.
Our guide Chris had plenty of other interesting tales and some good jokes and earned our thanks after answering remaining questions before it was time to leave, nearly two hours after the start of the tour. Before leaving we were each given a souvenir half pint Wychwood beer glass.

Finally, there was a chance to visit the store which has merchandise and a large range of bottled beers at reasonable prices.

Details from 2019 Wychwood Brewery taproom, store & tours leaflet:
Brewery Store: Mon - Sat 10am - 5pm
Wychwood Brewery Tap: Wed, Thu 5pm - 10pm; Fri 2pm - 10pm; Sat 12pm - 10pm, Sun 12pm - 6pm
Tours: (£12 per person): Thu, Fri 3pm, 6pm; Sat 11am, 11.30am, 1.30pm, 2pm, 4pm & 4.30pm; Sun 2pm & 2.30pm
Check availability and book at www.wychwood.co.uk

Wychwood Brewery, Eagle Maltings, The Crofts, Witney.  OX28 4DB
.

MoogBREW Taproom

A guest post by Alan Haselden, a CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) member who contributes articles to Ullage, the West Berkshire CAMRA magazine and to Out Inn Cheshire, the Cheshire CAMRA branches' magazine. Alan serves annually at CAMRA's Cheshire Beer Festival.

Margi and Id, owners of Taplow's moogBREW, warmly welcomed the Big Berkshire Ale Hike team during a break from their Thames Path jaunt on the final yet inclement day of British Summer Time.

Located some 10 minutes' walk of Taplow's railway station they brew a broad range of ale types and strengths mainly for key cask [live, cask conditioned ale in a bag within a plastic keg], bottles, cans and occasionally traditional cask. They tend to open to the public on selected Saturdays, which are indicated in advance on their website.

In their smart, snug timber outhouse, capacity barely a dozen, they were serving the 3.5% pale ale 'Wild Hop', the 6% IPA 'Bastard Bunny Strikes Back', the 6.2% speciality ale 'Pretty in Pink' and the 7% stout 'Fast Gerald's Stout'. 

The drizzly, blustery conditions kept us sitting indoors but during fine weather customers can relax in the extensive garden which is well stocked with benches and gazebos. Ale is served in two-third pint measures or less and each is assigned an amusing yet menacing cartoon pump clip. 

The smooth session ale 'Wild Hop' is made from hops picked by Margi from the surrounding countryside; the stout is a typical dry yet potent example but my firm favourite was the flamboyant 'Pretty in Pink', which is pale in colour and infused with pink peppercorn and juniper: its intricate flavour profile is a weaving of grassy, herby notes with touches of lavender and oil of bergamot that doesn't outstay its welcome. 

And I hope our team didn't outstay our welcome because we were there for nearly three hours enjoying the ale and conversing with the locals while the jukebox skanked joyfully through a endless stream of 1970's dub reggae. Well done Margi and Id. We shall be back.

Quinno in Kiev

A guest post by Quinten Taylor, Vice Chair of Reading CAMRA (2019) who is on Twitter as @SirQuinno

An article about the joys of Ukrainian beer and bars? Really? Absolutely! Having ventured out to a country I knew little of I was deeply impressed by how good the scene is out there. For brevity I’ll concentrate on Kiev as the capital and main destination for international flights. Distance per pound ratio is cheap compared to many other European destinations; at the time of writing, a return direct flight will set you back around £200 – not bad for 1,500 miles and three and a half hours!

The Motherland Monument, Kiev

Kiev is a large and modern metropolis of just under 3 million people and has a huge footprint. The bars are spread across the city centre so be prepared to walk up a thirst. 

English is not widely spoken or understood in Ukraine though a number of the younger bar staff know enough to make ordering relatively straightforward… and don’t forget that a few words of Ukrainian will get you a long way. 

Woolly Hops at Bolshaya Vasilkovskaya st

Ukrainians have an undeserved reputation for frostiness, most servers we encountered were friendly and curious to meet British beer tourists. Oh, and be prepared to use Google Translate on your mobile as some menus are in Cyrillic only!

Kiev central railway station

A quick run-down of the breweries. There is a new and fast-growing craft beer scene in Ukraine and the names I saw regularly around the bars included Tyspa, Ten Men, Didko, Varvar, Underwood, Volta, Rebrew and my stand-out, Gonzo. Ukrainian brewers are especially keen on sours, saisons and gose so keep an eye out for really off-beat interpretations including brewing with lime, apricot, blackberry and (memorably)… beetroot! Being so far away from any other major craft beer nation means that genuine experimentation is rife.

People's Friendship Arch - painted crack added since Russian annexation of Crimea

Rather than attempting to weave a narrative tapestry, I’ll go through the bars below with a pen-pic of each one. Think of it as a ‘cut-out-and-keep’ guide for your trip!

Vidro - beers with quartered pork & chicken bar snack

Vidro (Tarasa Shevchenka). Bar service
Close to Maidan Square, the heartbeat of the city, and therefore likely your accommodation. This is a simple long narrow place and almost micropub-like. 12 taps across most of the obvious styles. Gonzo predominates and we enjoyed their APA, Lavender Milk Stout and Raspberry Gose.

Woolly Hops (Bolshaya Vasilkovskaya). Table service
A fairly small wooden shack on the main road away from most tourists. 24 lines plus plentiful bottles. Staff a little hesitant but we got there. Oddly there is no bar, unobvious table service results in beer emerging from a downstairs cellar. Menu mainly in Cyrillic.

Bimbo (Volodymyro-Lybidska). Counter service
A little different, this is foremost a coffee outlet that also sells two dozen or so well-selected bottled beers from Ukraine and Poland (the Underwood Lime Saison was excellent). The staff here are very friendly. It was the bar’s birthday and coincidentally Mrs Quinno’s – on hearing this, they presented her with a gratis pavlova!

Taphouse (Yaroslaviv Val). Table service
Despite being labelled as owned by Collider brewery on Google there were none of their beers here; instead there was a similar (if reduced) menu to Woolly Hops that made me think they are now owned by the same people. Memorable for trying a beer from Tyspa called Kvass, made from black bread - a local speciality!

Solomyanska (Solomyanska Square). Bar service
Situated in a pretty part of the old town, this is a brewpub that’s more a gastro joint; more foody than beery and a bored-looking girl sat behind a desk at the entrance who asked if we had a table. We were fine to just have the beer (great!) but we were ordered to sit at the bar and were the only people doing so. We got a flight of their six beers, none of which were particularly memorable.

Punkraft (14 Ihorivska). Table service (or bar if you sit there)
A new cellar bar which felt the most recognisable as what we’d know as a craft bar. Orange and black inside with two smart bricked arch rooms behind. Parked ourselves at the bar and got served after a while but it looks like table service is the norm. 24 taps with 14 Ukrainian. We went for Didko Crye a hefty IPA and Rebrew Waka Coconut labelled as an ‘MIPA’, a new one on me!

Drunken Monkey (1 Kostiantynivska). Bar service
20 taps and a jumbo digital display board in Latin with a good range of styles and uniformly excellent quality. A memorable beer here was Underwood ‘Feel the Beet’ a beetroot sour. Russian spoken here more obviously than elsewhere and more of a pubby atmosphere as well. Probably my favourite.

Gonzo (19 Kostiantynivska). Table service
Brand new cellar bar operated by Gonzo brewery. 19 taps, mainly theirs with some guests. Fruit fans will enjoy it here, we had an excellent Mandarin APA and a Blackcurrent Gose. Staff were a bit flaky but it had only been open a few days, of course.

Craft vs Pub (Nyzhnii Val). Table or bar service
17 lines here in this fairly basic cellar bar with a number of breweries that were new to us and also some niche styles. Gremlin Good Girl Milkshake was declared ‘beer of the trip’ by Mrs Quinno.

Old Bar (off Velyka Vasylkivska). Table service
Off the main street by the McDonald's and metro (look for the sign by the alleyway entrance), housed in a polygonal shaped wooden construction. Self-proclaimed slogan of 'old bar, new beer'. Service swift and slightly aloof. However there’s 28 taps and the best range of bottles in Kiev.

Varvar (Saksahanskoho). Table service (or bar if you sit there)
There are two Varvar brewery owned bars in Kiev, this is newer one in the city centre. The interior is professionally crisp with much exposed light brick. 14 taps, mainly theirs with the odd guest. Tasters readily offered by friendly and professional staff.

Pivna Duma (various locations). Table service.
A small chain of brewpub restaurants throughout Kiev, we did the one by the train station. Most people were here to eat, but drinking at the bar is fine once the staff have understood you are beer tourists but it did feel a little odd. We took a flight of the 5 homebrews, with the dark and IPA most drinkable.

Tim adds – Cheers Quinno! Look out for edited print versions of Quinno’s Kiev guide in a future issue of Ullage (West Berkshire CAMRA magazine) and Mine’s a Pint (Reading CAMRA magazine).

Anyone with a story suitable for publication in Ullage and / or as a guest post in BeerEurope is welcome to submit details to Tim via editor@westberkscamra.org.uk

Antwerp Beer Passion Weekend - all the posts

Antwerp Beer Passion Weekend / BierPassie Weekend occurs on a weekend at the end of June starting on the Friday evening.

Here are links to all the related blog posts since my first visit in 2016.

2016:
Antwerp Beer Passion Weekend 2016 

2017:
Belgian Beer Trip 2017 - Day 3
Belgian Beer Trip 2017 - Day 4
Belgian Beer Trip 2017 - Day 5

2018:
Antwerp - Friday 22/6/2018 - part 2
Antwerp - Saturday 23/6/2018

2019:
Antwerp - Friday 28 June 2019
Antwerp Comic Murals & Beer Passion - Saturday 29 June 2019

Brussels (Marolles & Saint-Gilles) - Monday 1 July 2019

Visits to La Brocante (Marolles), Brasserie Égalité and Brasserie de l'Union (Saint-Gilles) would round off our fifth and final day in Belgium.

On the way from Hotel Barry, Place Anneessens 25 to La Brocante, Rue Blaes 170, Steve and I passed the impressive Palais du Vin. The art nouveau style warehouse building has been recently renovated since construction in 1909.

Walking up Rue des Capucins, we passed the Léonard mural by Turk and De Groot where the actual Palace of Justice (featured in the painting) is also visible in the distance.

We passed La Brocante and made a quick tour of the daily market held in Place du Jeu de Balle.

Returning to La Brocante, on the corner of the market place, we found a table and looked through the menu card.

Eventually a waiter found time to take our order. Steve ordered an Oude Kriek from Oud Beersel but as it was only 11.30am I ordered tomato juice and a ham and cheese sandwich.

2/3 remainder of baguette sandwich - saved for later!

The large baguette sandwich was good value (4.20 euro) and freshly made. We didn't see the cafe's cat today but see Tim's post from 22 March 2019 for more photos from La Brocante including its cat.

Getting a WhatsApp message from Keith alerted us that his group had arrived at our rendezvous point Brasserie Égalité so we headed to Saint-Gilles via the gardens around Porte de Hal and then up Chaussée de Waterloo.

Égalité is one of the Saint-Gilles bars featured in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide Belgium by Joe Stange & Tim Webb.

Brasserie Egalite - Steve arriving as Keith, John & Richard are seated outside.

Brasserie Égalité, Parvis de Saint-Gilles 47, is open most hours of the day and night. 

We arrived just in time to find beers from the large refrigerated display before access was temporarily suspended for an interior cleaning exercise. 

I had been on the look out for Brasserie de la Senne Bruxellensis but picked up a bottle of Brusseleir by mistake. However, this 8% ABV black IPA proved to be an excellent alternative!

From our table outside, the five of us had a good view west towards the church of St Giles which gives the neighbourhood its name. The temperature had dropped since the weekend and it was a bit windy so once the cleaning exercise was completed we found a table inside near the front windows.

Reverting to Saisons, my next beer was a bottle of Saison Voisin from Brasserie des Legendes. 
This is a bar for people who know what beers they will like and can choose a bottle from the fridge but is less suited to anyone seeking advice on what beer to drink.

Brasserie de l'Union (photo 25/3/2019)

The visit to Saint-Gilles had been my idea and for the next bar I suggested either Brasserie Verschueren, by the church, or Brasserie de l'Union a few doors away at the east end of Parvis de Saint-Gilles / Sint-Gillisvorplein. Dear reader, we opted for Brasserie de l'Union.

Arriving at 2.30pm, after the lunchtime trade, we were able to find a table inside.  Our animated waiter was wearing a Brussels Beer Project t-shirt. Unlike our earlier experience we now had advice and strongly held opinions from a beer connoisseur and champion of small local breweries. As well as bottled Saisons from L'Annexe, 

I followed our waiter's advice to have their draught Saison de Bruxelles (6% ABV), served from a surplus keg from a recent party organised by the nearby nanobrewery.
This was a good final beer on my annual Antwerp / Brussels trip. Now there was only time to retrieve luggage from Hotel Barry before catching the 16.56 Eurostar back to London St Pancras International. 

Leaving Saint-Gilles, I passed by Brasserie / Restaurant La Porteuse d'Eau, Jean Volders Avenue 48, another bar featured in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide Belgium and now marked for a future visit.

Tim Webb / Joe Stange comment in the Guide 'It's an (Art Nouveau) imitation, faux Horta, but who's checking? More obviously authentic is the list of 70+ beers with goodies from Dupont, Lindemans and St. Bernardus.' 

Also nearby is Malt Attacks, a specialisst beer bottle shop, at Jean Volders Avenue 18. 

Steve would catch up with me at Brussels Midi / Zuid. John and Richard would return on a later Eurostar service and Keith would head back to Germany. 

Brasserie Verschueren (photo 22/3/2019)

I was glad to hear that before leaving Saint-Gilles, the latter three also had time to visit nearby Brasserie Verschueren where they met the bar's cat. Richard later commented '... St Gilles was fantastic, relaxing and a nice change from the tourism of the centre.  Three excellent bars and one indifferent cat, with more on the list for next time.  So convenient for the centre, a nice place to live I'd say, and everyone that passed along that street seemed to know everyone else.  Maybe a nice area to stay in future.'