The Brewing Process

Pictuer of the village of Hook Norton on cold winter morning

In the brewery on dark winter mornings or bright summer ones brewing starts at 6.00 am when the steam engine begins to hiss and rhythmically thump into life.

Then brewing begins with the pumping of the liquor from a well below the brewery and the malt is crushed in the Grist mill. From here it travels to the masher and then on to the mash tun.

The malt rests in the mash tun, until it is time to run the sweet wort to the copper. It's now 11.00am at the brewery and the brewing process has reached the point where the hops are added and the whole brew is boiled in the copper.

After the boiling, it's on to the hopback where the wort is strained, and then off for cooling ready for fermentation.

Afternoon at the brewery, about 12.30pm, it's time for the fermentation phase of the brewing process and the huge fermenting vessel begins to fill.

The fermentation phase of the brewing process, where the yeast converts sugars to alcohol, takes 7 days. After the 7 days, the beer can be racked into casks, where the finings are added.

Racking is done down on the ground floor of the brewery where there are tanks that receive the brew.A handful of the best quality dry hops is added to each cask, which is then filled, giving Hook Norton Beer its special quality.

The brewing is now at an end. All that is left is for the casks to be sent to the brewery cellar where the beer will slowly come into condition before leaving the brewery.

The Brewing Day

Malt in jars

1. Malt

Checking the quality of the principle raw material, the finest Maris Otter pale ale Malted Barley.Ten different coloured malts are used over the full range of Hook Norton Beers.


old milling process

2. Milling

Checking the mill for the correct crush characteristics. The mill rolls have to be set to give the desired blend of husk, grits and flour to allow good extract and efficient run off from the mash tun.

The mill is a Nalder & Nalder 2 x 2 roll mill



Brewer mashing process

3. Mashing

First job, early in the morning, mashing commences at 6:00am. The crushed malt is mixed with hot liquor through a Steeles masher into one of the two mash-tuns.

Mashing-in takes 10 minutes, then the mash is allowed to stand for 90 minutes to allow the conversion of starch to fermentable sugars to take place.


Setting the taps

4. Setting Taps

A process at Hook Norton Brewery that has not changed in 100 years. After the 90 minutes stand the sweet sugary solution called wort is drained from below the false bottom of the mash tun, and is run by gravity to one of the two coppers.

The mash is sprayed with hot liquor through a rotating sparge arm, this allows all of the sugars to be washed from the malt to maximise the extract. The run off process takes approximately 2 and a half hours.


The hops in a sack

5. Hops

Checking the quality of the hops prior to addition to the copper. The choicest hops are used to bitter Hook Norton Beers.

Traditional varieties such as Fuggles, Goldings & Challenger dominate with First Gold & Styrian Goldings used in some seasonal ales. Late Copper hopping is key to the hop characteristic found in Hook Norton Beers. In addition all beers are dry hopped in cask with Goldings Hops.


head brewer checking the copper

6. The Copper

Boiling Wort is seen running to our open Copper. In the 2 and a half hours it takes to run-off the Mash Tun, the copper is gradually filling and coming to the boil.

Our blend of hops are added and the copper is boiled for 1 hour 15 minutes. In that time the bitterness is extracted from the hops.After boiling the copper is "cast" to the hop back where the hops are held back and the boiling, bitter/sweet wort is pumped to the open cooler before being chilled through a place heat exchanger and allowed to flow into fermentation vessel.


Brewer checking fermentation process

7. Fermentation

Yeast is added to the collected wort in the fermenting vessel a process called "pitching" and fermentation commences. Hook Norton Beers will remain in the fermenting vessel for a full 7 days. In that time the sugars from the malt will be converted into alcohol by the yeast, with carbon dioxide being evolved as fermentation proceeds.

After 4 days the yeast is removed, using the parachute system, then the beer is gently cooled to accelerate the flocculation and sedimention of the yeast. Gravity and temperature are checked throughout the fermentation process to monitor and control the speed of fermentation. A saccharometer is seen being used to measure the specific gravity.


Cask racking process process

8. Cask Racking

Before beer is dropped to the racking tank it is checked directly from the Fermenting Vessel for aroma, palate, colour, gravity and assessed as to whether it is true to type and therefore can be passed for filling into casks, a process known as "racking". Hook Norton Beers are racked into Barrels, Kilderkins, Firkins and Pins. Here our seasonal ale Double Stout is being assessed.


Sampling the end product

9. Sampling

The most important check! Representative samples of each rack are taken and set up on a stillage. These are checked to assess quality and to monitor flavour throughout the life of the beer.

Checking of the beers is done each day and the assessments are recorded.

CHEERS!


 

 

Picture of the construction of the riginal victorian tower brewery

A Little Brewery History

The Hook Norton Brewery Company Ltd can trace it's origins back to 1849. A young man by the name of John Harris moved into Hook Norton and set up business as a maltster.

He soon started brewing and in 1872 built a small three storey brewery. As business increased, so these premises were out grown and in 1898 a new six storey brewery was built to replace it.

Much of the original brewing equipment installed at this time is still in use today including the brewery's showpiece, a 25hp steam engine, providing nearly all of the motive power.

Environmentally friendly

You might be interested to know that the brewing process is very environmentally friendly. Historically, all of the grains that are surplus to requirements after mashing were sent off as cattle feed, something which Hook Norton Brewery hopes to continue.

The water used in the brewing process is reused as much as possible in the brewery and Hook Norton Brewery has one of the best records in terms of amount of water used per amount of beer produced.