With a spot of photo editing the brewery's name is now on the signboard.
Southport Brewery is housed in two units on an industrial estate on the inland side of the town. Unit 3 is the brewhouse.
The proprietor and head brewer is Paul Bardsley.
Paul Bardsley welcomes us to his brewery.
Paul Bardsley welcomes us to his brewery. He is leaning on the mash tun which is mounted so that it can be tipped for easy cleaning. Behind it it is the hot liquor tank.
Brewing vessels, left to right: mash tun, hot liquor tank, copper, fermenting vessels 1, 2 and 3.
Most of the equipment has previously been in use at some other site, but the copper is custom-fabricated,
full-on view of the copper
The copper's powerful electric heating elements can just be seen.
electric heating elements for boiling the wort after it has been pumped from the mash tun
This vessel has an electric heating element but it's actually the hot liquor tank where water used for cooling the wort from the previous brewing operation (and thereby heated in the heat exchanger) is saved for the next brew.
From its three legs it looks as if the swivellable mash tun started life free-standing.
This is a brew in fermenting vessel no.2. Southport uses fresh Thwaites yeast.
FV3 was purchased from Poachers Brewery in Lincolnshire when that brewery downsized.
Visiting CAMRA members are enthralled.
Wakefield CAMRA Publicity Officer Bob Wallis presents Paul with a commemorative certificate. After a couple of mishaps we now always use acrylic glazed frames when we travel away by minibus.
Look folks, we've never had one like that!
The two beers on offer for us to taste were Cyclone, a 3.8% bronze coloured bitter, fruity with a hint of blackcurrant, and Golden Sands at 4.0% a golden coloured triple hopped bitter with a citrus flavour. Cyclone is named after a historic ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Tower Mild is mainly brewed for Maytime and commemorates a vanishing Southport landmark , the gas tower whose site was but a couple of hundred metres from the brewery.
By the day of our visit, Saturday 27th June 2009, the famous gas tower's metal panels had been dismantled to a vitual stump.
stump of the Gas Tower
Another brew with a funfair connection, Carousel is described as a refreshing floral, hoppy best bitter.
The brewhouse is Unit 3, and this is Unit 5. Let's take a peek through the letterbox.
Through the letterbox we can see that Unit 5 stores and deals with the brewery's casks. When we arrived at the industrial estate, we'd all said "Look for the unit with casks stacked up outside" but that we did not see!
Southport Brewery has a mixture of metal and plastic casks. The yellow and black are the colours of Southport Football Club.
Operations performed in Unit 5 include caskwashing and the filling of polypins.
For your party Southport can supply a firkin with handpump.
The Wakefield CAMRA crew dicuss their samples.
Paul calls "Last Orders" to the evident alarm of Wakefield Treasurer Mike Abba.
By now we've managed to get some of us on to the minibus.
Paul bids us cheerio for now but probably will see us in one of the the town centre pubs he recommends.
Our driver's other job is party magician. He's also a cask ale fan but as driver must be t-t for the day.
Come on George and Jonnty!
Come on Secretary June (left). Note a good use for plastic casks, i.e. bar stools.
Yes we have all left now.
