The Brew Company’s ales are very different from the mass produced extra cold tasteless brands brewed by large brewers.
We don’t pasteurise our ale as the huge commercial brewers do as this rips the soul out of the beer taking with it the flavour!
We use traditional brewing methods and so all our cask conditioned ales maintain character and are full of flavour because the yeast is allowed to live on in the cask and work its magic!
Brewing is where we extract sugars from malted barley and turn these sugars into alcohol through fermentation with yeast. Hops are then added to impart a bitter flavour and aromas.
So how do we brew exactly?
First we ‘mash’ which takes place in a Mash Tun.
Malted barley is mixed with water at the correct temperature so the enzymes change the starch found in the malt into sugars. The resulting sweet liquid is called ‘wort’.
The wort is then filtered through the base of the mash tun to ensure all the barley husks are removed from the liquid. At this point the remaining grain is ’sparged’ (sprinkled with hot water) to wash out any remaining sugars.
The beer is then pumped into the ‘copper’ to be boiled. Here bittering hops are added and the wort is then boiled for an hour. Boiling sterilises the beer and extracts the hop flavours which impart its bitter taste. Aroma or late hops are added at the end of the boil to boost the smell.
The wort is then cooled and pumped into the fermenting tank where yeast is added. Soon bubbles of carbon dioxide can be seen which is one of the bi-products of the conversion of sugars to alcohol.
After 4 days of fermentation the beer is ‘racked’ into casks and allowed to stand for a few days to condition. This helps develop flavours and improve clarification.
