Sorry this photo of the first two to get to the bar at the Bull in Paradise (Theakston Brewery hospitality bar) is not very sharp but it shows Roger Perrell, a keen local CAMRA member and Ian Glover, a keen local CAMRA member who's gone one step further in becoming the new licensee of O'Donoghues at Wakefield.
Maggie Wilson pulls our first pints.
Simon Theakston, who gave our party a potted history of the Theakston family business, chats with a rep from S & N Pub Enterprises. Simon is the sole member of the family who actually now works at T & R Theakston Ltd. The brewery has its origin as the brewhouse of the Black Bull in Masham. Follow this link to read about the brewery's history on the Theakston website: http://www.theakstons.co.uk/brewery/index.html
external view of brewhouse
oak casks and spare parts - now used only for Old Peculier as ordered by particular customers
On this gable end is the Peculier of Masham, symbol for the brewery, whom you can read about on the brewery's website http://www.theakstons.co.uk/brewery/index.html
Whole malt is sourced from Simpsons of Berwick and from Fawcetts of Castleford, which is in the Wakefield CAMRA branch area. Microbrewers tend to buy their malt ready-crushed. You can use this link to read about malting in our area: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bob.wallis/maltsters.html The page will also link you back to a Web Album of a visit by Wakefield CAMRA to Fawcetts.
Torrefied wheat gives the beer a good head and that nice lacing on the inside of the glass.
chocolate malt, of which a little goes a long way
The brewery was constructed as a tower brewery in Victorian times - the materials start at the top of the builsing and finish at the bottom, all moved by gravity. Here we are looking at the grist mill where the malt grains are crushed.
grist mill
The hopper brings the milled grains from the floor above to the mash tun, equivalent of a teapot.
Maggie explains mashing and sparging.
Note the cast iron sides of the mash tun, which retain heat better than sheet steel. They are original but the wooden lids only have a limited life.
The big red tank is the hot liquor tank (liquor is brewers' parlance for water). Water used for cooling the wort down to a temperature where yeast can survive to begin the fermentation process, is stored so that hot water for the next mashing doesn't have to start off from clap cold. A subsequent picture will show the heat exchanger where the wort is cooled.
a second view of the Hot Liquor Tank
The lower part of the mash tun is on this floor and the upper part, seen in earlier photos, is on the floor above. From here the water charged with sugars from the malt grains is piped to the copper to be boiled up, with the addition of whole hops which impart bitterness and aroma to the beer, as well as acting as a preservative.
Maureen James, standing next to the copper, doesn't usually deal with such large quantities in her home brew shop.
At first we thought this must be a fermenting vessel, but it's a fermenter-sized hop-back.
At most breweries visited by Wakefield CAMRA, the hop-back, if there is one at all, consists of a modest sized plastic bin.
This is the heat exchanger or paraflo where hot wort is piped one way and cold water the other. That warmed water can now be stored in the hot liquor tank, and won't need as much time and energy to get up to mashing temperature, which in most breweries is around 70°C.
a traditional open fermenter, with a nice covering of yeast at work turning sugars into alcohol
Brewing is more than nine tenths cleaning, and for the fermentation vessels, traditional green scouring pads and elbow grease are the order of the day.
This looks like the Head Brewer's desk. Where's the quill pen?
After fermentation the beer is cooled down and stored in these huge conditioning tanks until it is ready to be racked into casks.
This is where the casks are filled.
general view of the racking room
Black Bull was the original Theakston pub in Masham, and Paradise Fields is where the present brewery is situated.
The final part of our visit was to the cooper's shop. These coffin-shaped pieces of oak are known as staves and the iron rings, simply hoops. No jointing compound is needed between the staves which rely on their snug fit to be watertight
Cooper Jonathan Manby wanted to be a furniture maker actually. Shaping the staves looked quite easy......
A volunteer(? ha ha) from our party found that balancing everything was not actually so easy.
Jonathan prepares to rivet a hoop - the steel strip is supplied with a bias.
He will punch holes and then fit traditional malleable iron rivets.
Ian Glover, who ought to have some plumbing skills at least, finds himself volunteering to do the riveting.
Now flatten that rivet off.
The name says it all.
Now cutting the cask ends, which need to fit into the groove in the chimb. Fitting the first as a little easier than fitting the second one which can only be done from the outside of the cask with the help of an s-shaped hammering tool which Jonthan inserts through the spile hole. There's a lot more to the process than these photos show!
All that braying was thirsty work for Ian.
With repairs an oak cask can last up to 40 years, Stacked in this way, salvaged staves should keep their shape.
a previous cooper at T & R Theakston Ltd
a decorative use for old malt rakes
another old malt rake
