The Nethergate Brewery in Suffolk is one of the country's longest-established micros with a success story to tell. It proves that, beneath the giant tent of the global brewers who dominate British beer drinking, there is a powerful counter culture based on craft brewing that meets the needs of drinkers demanding flavour and taste in beer.
Dick Burge founded Nethergate in 1986. It grew out of his successful wine business but today grain plays just as important a role in his life as the grape.
The brewery was based in cramped buildings in the market town of Clare but last autumn Dick and his team took the decision to move to bigger premises to expand production. Since October work has been going on to build offices, brewery and warehouse just outside Cavendish, a few miles from Clare. Brewing started -- fittingly on Good Friday.
The small complex is based on a farm and gives Dick and head brewer Tom Knox five times the space they had at Clare. They are renting converted barns and cowsheds from a local farmer who is so enthusiastic about the project that he grows Maris Otter barley for the brewery and is even contemplating planting hops.
Tom Knox has a bigger brewing kit to play with that can produce 45 barrels a time. He has added new fermenters, hot liquor tank, copper and underback.
Nethergate's production will rise from 95 barrels a week to 120 this year, with the aim of reaching 150 by 2006. In common with many expanding micros, Nethergate's ability to grow has been given a major boost by the introduction of Progressive Beer Duty that enables smaller brewers to pay less tax on production.
The company, despite its modest size, has achieved national recognition as a result of its innovative beers. Back in 1989, the now retired head brewer, Ian Hornsey, launched Old Growler, based on a mid-18th century recipe for a London mild brewed by Taylor Walker. As mild ales were far stronger in the 1750s than they are today, Hornsey dubbed his 5% Old Growler a porter.
The success of Old Growler was the spark that led to the revival of interest in the style, with many craft brewers, including regionals, producing their interpretations of the dark beer that helped create a commercial brewing industry at the dawn of the industrial revolution.
Ian Hornsey, with the full backing of Dick Burge, then went the extra brewing mile. He noticed that the original Taylor Walker recipe had included coriander, an indication that as late as the 18th century, many brewers were still using other aromatic flavourings alongside the hop.
A version of Old Growler made with the addition of coriander created such interest that the beer, named Umbel Magna umbel being the scientific name for coriander became a regular brew in both cask and bottle.
The resurgence of sales of bottled beer has created new sales opportunities for Nethergate. Umbel and Old Growler in bottled form are on sale in Sainsbury's and Tesco while a special beer for Bhs last Christmas was worth 40,000 barrels. Around a quarter of the brewery's production is now in bottle and includes an Augustinian Ale brewed for the American market, with a royalty paid to a functioning priory in Clare.
But Nethergate remains principally a cask beer producer. Its main brands are a 4% Suffolk County Best Bitter and a 3.5% IPA. The beers are sold as far away as Grantham, Northampton and Oxford, but the main thrust of the business is in East Anglia and London, with some branches of Wetherspoon's in Suffolk stocking the bitters.
Dick Burge's wine business is worth 400,000 bottles a year but brewing runs it close in order of success. The global brewers would scoff at the size of the production runs at Nethergate but they ignore the fact that a hard core of beer drinkers wants to go beyond the chill and the fizz of mass-marketed brands.
The likes of Nethergate are meeting that demand and prove there is a quiet but powerful beer revolution under way in Britain. The global giants may yet rue the day they turned their backs on quality beer and discerning drinkers.