Compared to, say, Roger Putman, recently retired editor of Brewer & Distiller International magazine, who has visited more than 170 different breweries in his career, I’ve really not been to that many: fewer than 60, across four decades, albeit in six different countries. Pfff. Amateur status. But inexplicably, in 2014 I was welcomed into seven different brewhouses, of all sizes, that I had never been to before, from the massive new set-up at Guinness in Ireland to Twickenham Fine Ales’ current base, which may be bigger than its first home, but still produces less in a year than Brewhouse No 4 in Dublin makes in a day.
I take my camera with me around breweries, though I’m not, I cannot emphasise enough, a photographer in any sense except being the idiot pressing the shutter button. Very occasionally I get something that isn’t actually terrible. And since 2010 I’ve been using a camera that is fantastic at taking low-light shots, which helps enormously inside buildings. I have put a few of the pictures from my 2014 trips up on the blog to illustrate the pieces I wrote at the time, but two trips, to Shepherd Neame in Faversham and Hook Norton in Oxfordshire, never produced any words. So here is a small selection of snaps from two of Britain’s most traditional breweries:
Shepherd Neame brewery, Faversham
Entrance to the Shepherd Neame brewery in Faversham, Kent
An old radiator-style heat-exchange wort cooler, late 19th or early 20th century, discarded and lying around the Faversham brewery. The hot wort ran into the trough at the top and over the outside of the cooler, through which ran cold water, then poured into the trough at the bottom and ran away to the fermenting vessel
Lovely poster from the time of the Shepherd & Mares partnership at the Faversham brewery, circa 1849-1864, hanging in the Faversham brewery boardroom
A poster for Shepherd Neame’s bottled beers from 1926, now also hanging in the company boardroom in Faversham
The 1914 mash tun at the Shepherd Neame brewery, refurbished 1949, still in use
Inside the 1914 mash tun at the Faversham brewery, showing the slotted floor plates
A copper lauter tun in the Shepherd Neame brewhouse, Faversham, with a copper in the background
Stained glass windows in the Shepherd Neame brewhouse. Spot the icons, including a bishop’s finger signpost, and the Shepherd & Mares trademark
Inside the Shepherd Neame sampling room, with slate tasting notes
Framed letter in the Shepherd Neame sample room introducing the brewery’s newest beer in 1958, Bishops Finger
Hook Norton brewery
The Hook Norton brewery, designed by the brewery architect William Bradford, who also designed Harvey’s brewery in Lewes and McMullen’s in Hertford, among many others. This is the ‘cliche shot’ of Hook Norton, the one everybody takes, but hey …
There’s a joke in here somewhere about a work of art fit for the Louvres …
Old grist mill at the Hook Norton brewery
A notice on the wind trunk, a device for separating the plump malted grain from the dust and faulty, too-light grains before the malt was ground
Inside a mash tun at the Hook Norton brewery wth the plates up after cleaning
Disused copper cooler at the top of the Hook Norton brewery. The hot, newly boiled wort would be pumped up into the shallow cooler, and the louvres opened for the steam to escape as the wort cooled down before it was run into the fermenting vessels below and the yeast pitched. Infections? Undoubtedly …
Copper, Hook Norton brewery. This is one of the few I have seen in a “large” brewery that does not exhibit the “iceberg” effect, where most of the copper is hidden below the floor that the operator stands on to feed in hops
Inside the (empty, obviously) copper at the Hook Norton brewery