The Brewery...
Our 8 barrel copper clad brewhouse is on display in the downstairs bar, however, we quickly outgrew this kit and so we now brew on a 16 barrel brew house in the cellar.
our 8 barrel kit
Whilst we have a brewery twice the size downstairs we do not have a Hot Liquor Tank (HLT) to run it. To solve this we now use the original HLT and the Copper (the outermost tanks) to heat and store the hot water for each brew we do.
our 16 barrel kit
After outgrowing our 8 barrel kit fairly quickly we invested in a new brewery twice the size. This has helped improve the quality of the beers produced and also future proofed the brewery as we do not brew to capacity (yet).
our hop rocket
The Hop Rocket is a more efficient way of adding aroma hops instead of adding them to the copper. This has improved the quality and also reduced hop usage by about 40%.
our fermenters
We have 3 Glycol cooled fermenters (one of which we use as a Cold Liqour Tank (CLT)) that we can set the temperature of anywhere between 25 degrees and 5 degrees to maintain a healthy fermentation and then cold crash.
our conditioning tanks
We have two Conditioning Tanks which are used to further chill the beers to 1C, aid in the clarificaion and natural carbonation. These tanks are the last stop before barreling the beer.
the process...
Our malted barley is first mashed with hot water or liquor as it is known in the brewing trade then steeped for 80 minutes at a temperature of 65-66C allowing the enzymes present in the barley to turn the starch into fermentable sugars.
The sweet liquid created in this process is known as wort, which is then transferred to the copper for boiling.
The act of boiling helps to stabilise and sterilise the wort and then the initial hops for bitterness are added. Near the end of the boil Irish moss is added for further stabilisation.
Flavour and aroma hops are added to the hop rocket before the wort is then cooled to around 17-19 degrees centigrade and oxygenated into the fermenter where the yeast is added. It is kept at a constant temperature to allow the yeast to work its magic and turn the sugar into alcohol.
The beer is then moved to the conditioning tank where it is chilled to aid clarification and natural carbonation before it is casked and stored in a cold room prior to being served on the bar.