Last month we had extracted the sweet wort from the spent grains. Now we have to boil with hops to make hopped wort and separate out the solids before fermentation. Remember we are on the lookout for any additives or processing aids, as the brewer prefers to call them, being used in the operations. The […]

We hinted last time that brewing beer or wash for making malt whisky was a lot more complicated than making wine or cider as the sugars for fermentation are not immediately available but are bound up as starch in the barleycorn. Along with fermentation you can argue that mashing is the most important part of […]

We have been blogging about beers but skirting around brewing technology in general. We have looked at no- and low alcohol products, life style beers like low carbs or organics, home brewing and some aspects of sustainability, yet we have not told you the basics about how it is brewed. Beer has been around in […]

With much of Britain returning to varying degrees of lockdown, are you going to have another go at brewing your own beer? How did your first efforts turn out? Did your friends say the beer was good but then not finish the glass? Did your beer not taste quite the same as the stuff that […]

Sustainability is a huge subject encompassing the effects which industrial activity has on the local and global environment. It is far too large a topic to cover in much detail in this blog of just over 1000 words, but here we go with a few of the issues and some innovative solutions. Some of us […]

Once there was mild and bitter, then along came lager. The last fifty years has seen a proliferation in styles driven by the craft beer movement. Materials and the process lead to differences in appearance, aroma and taste and each beer has its own aficionados. Today we collectively know a lot more about health and […]

Should brewers be worried? Well alcopops are back with a vengeance. Hard is an American term meaning alcoholic; they have hard ciders to distinguish from the traditional US cider which is apple juice and does not contain alcohol. A seltzer is a sparkling flavoured water. Another term you will see is ‘spiked seltzer’, alcoholic soda […]

..Whatever ‘normal’ might be! Will they or won’t they? Can we or can’t we? Brewers and pub owners have been bombarded with rules, guidance, surmise and gossip over the last 100 days since pubs were shuttered. As we discussed in the April blog, some brewers have completely shut up shop for the duration, others have […]

There has been phenomenal growth in low-alcohol products and at last a sector of the beer market is in growth. When the cricketing reverend David Sheppard first heard of Barbican he likened non-alcoholic beer to a non-female woman! But with lucrative contracts with Saudi Arabia up for grabs Bass persisted and was joined by St […]

It is now over a month since all Britain’s pubs, bars and restaurants were shuttered with little notice a few days after we had been asked not to visit them for fear of spreading the Coronavirus. The UK has around 2500 breweries (mostly very small) and according to CGA some 116,500 licensed premises including pubs […]

Weekend magazines are forever covering the up-and-coming food and drink fads. We see edamame noodles, poké, fresh turmeric root, pignoletto, mastiha and among other things, that few have heard of, let alone tasted, is always kombucha. This is a fermented tea which originated in the Far East many centuries ago. This refreshing folk remedy and […]

We have female Ice Road truckers, firefighters, submariners and perhaps soon front line combat troops. During the month of World Women’s Day, what is the current situation in the drinks industry? Women’s more discerning taste buds have long been appreciated in the spirits business with noted master blenders like Rachel Barrie (Brown Forman after Morrison […]

Rum has been going to be the ‘next big thing’ for the last few years once the gin market becomes totally saturated with new start distilleries. Rum is not as easy to produce as gin; you have to ferment a molasses base first before distillation. For gin you buy rectified spirit and add peels, barks, […]

We know that visitors to this website are adventurous but I wonder how many of you received a bottle of absinthe for Christmas. There is something mildly naughty and a tad trepidatious about first trying a drink that is supposed to drive you mad. Known as the Green Fairy we have intriguing stories from La […]

Vinegar has been known to man for as long as beer has. This solution of acetic acid is used as a condiment, for pickling foods, making sauces and chutneys. It remains the housewife’s most ready source of acid for cleaning and in the US and Japan, vinegar parlours are springing up where people drink it […]

There is a perception that wine makes itself. You crush the grapes, the yeast is on the surface of the skins, you put the juice into casks and hey presto. If you are making Beaujolais Nouveau you may only have six weeks as the rush to market starts on the third Thursday of November! Others […]

According to the latest figures from Julia Tristam Eve at Wine GB, there are 522 commercial vineyards and 164 wineries in England currently producing 15 million bottles. That is a two and a half times increase in just five years. More than 8,600 acres of grapes are being grown and that has doubled in the […]

There are some folk in Burton on Trent who are looking forward to global warming as it will bring the distant seaside closer! Whether you believe in a man-made cause of climate change or put it down to sun spots, El Niño or cyclical changes, there is no denying that the last five years – […]

By law in the UK, whisky must spend at least three years in an oak cask before it can be bottled and sold as ‘whisky’.

We thought it was time we looked at how the structure of the UK brewing industry has changed since those heady days back in 1980