The making of a champion

Seven years ago in the East Midlands, all the local breweries were challenged to create a special beer for the Nottingham beer festival. It was 2003 - the year that the new tram system came in and the same tram system sponsored the celebrations.

For the festival, Castle Rock Brewery produced Trammy Dodger - a 4.3 per cent ABV beer brewed that ended up winning the title of Beer of the Festival. The decision to carry on brewing the award-winning ale was an easy one.

So, with a reduced ABV of 3.8 per cent, the resulting blonde beer was renamed 'Harvest Pale' to suit its appearance. Last week, Harvest Pale was crowned CAMRA's Champion Beer of Britain 2010. Since then, Castle Rock has been celebrating a busy couple of weeks.

So, has the recipe changed since its Trammy Dodger days? Castle Rock's head brewer Adrian Redgrove says: "My input was to slightly adapt the recipe. I've changed the hop grists and the balance and toned down the bitterness and given more balance to the beer. I'd like to think that people trying it would be able to appreciate the citrus hoppy character and want to drink another and another."

And how did it feel winning Champion Beer of Britain at the Great British Beer Festival? "It was a bit of a whirlwind day at the GBBF," admits Adrian. "My feet haven't touched the ground."

"We're delighted," adds Castle Rock Brewery commercial director Colin Wilde. "We're fully aware that you do need to be brewing good beer to win an award like this, but we also appreciate it's all down to a bit of luck on the day.

"You get your beers in the right place at the right time and get a good panel of judges that enjoy their beer and in some ways it's a bit like winning the Grand National. We know this as we sell a lot of other people's beers in our pubs [Castle Rock, formerly known as Tynemill, runs several pubs which all sell cask beers from microbreweries] and there are a lot of good brewers out there with fantastic beer. The key thing for us is that we are committed to pubs and we're committed to brewing."

Castle Rock Brewery chairman and chief executive Chris Holmes says: "Having a national presence has become more important to us now. We've been able to hide in our East Midlands enclave for a long time."

Pacing themselves​

"We've been at capacity now for 18 months and the new brewhouse will be ready to open this week but, even then, there'll be 'a commissioning period' because we don't want to rush things," says Chris. He is wary of repeating the errors of some former champions. "Certain breweries made mistakes when they won Champion Beer of Britain - they tried to rush beer out," he says. "I know we will take it at a natural pace."

That's not to say the brewer doesn't have big plans. "Our theoretical capacity will go up to around 18,000 barrels," says Chris, adding that Castle Rock is currently only brewing up to 6,000 right now.

"There's a long way to go with the various duty implications that come up, but, as we see it, it's better to keep on growing the company rather than stay in one place.

What our brewer will have is a state-of-the-art brewery which is much more efficient, easier for the people to work in, with quality of beer that should be even better - if that's at all possible."

So did the company consider tax issues at all when planning its expansion? "We didn't make the decision to expand based on taxes and duty, but we did read up to make sure we weren't putting a bullet in our foot," says Colin.

"The nuts and bolts of it are that progressive beer duty has enabled us to expand and invest in our business," he adds. "Without it, it's very unlikely we would have been able to move forward with the project because it's a crucial part of supporting small brewers, brewers like ourselves, and growing brewers."

With its expanded capacity, Castle Rock will not be sitting on its laurels either. Colin explains that the brewer has a few irons in the fire for the next year or so, with plans for a low-ABV beer as well as a new seasonal range of local ales to help boost trade.

"We're half-thinking the forthcoming review in the autumn on beer duty may bring relief for lower-ABV beer, so a 2.9 per cent ABV beer might need to be brewed to get maximum benefit and to give a good offering in our pubs," reveals Colin, adding that the brewer also plans to launch a seasonal range of beers that will help promote Nottingham. "We are from Nottingham and we support Nottingham, so we'd like to get a local beer into local pubs," he says.

Going nationwide​

Heading up operations, Chris also admits he'll be out and about raising the brewer's profile.

"In the next week I am going all over the country meeting various brewers for reciprocal deals," says Chris. "They give us three or four slots a year into their territories and we sell their beer up in Nottingham in our managed pubs.

"It's about swapping. Because we've got pubs, we can deliver volume to other real ale brewers and they can deliver volume to us.

"These are the sort of links we now have to develop and move on with."

So who is next on the list? David McCaig at Otter Brewery in Devon. "I'll be talking to David at Otter Brewery about getting their beers up in this area and getting our beers down to Devon. I just love their beers."

Chris adds: "We don't see pubs just as a vehicle to sell our beer. If our managers and tenants can decide what they're selling, it gives them a bigger sense of proprietorial ownership of their own pubs. We want our managers to be as autonomous as possible as opposed to the highly controlled, centralised managed estates that exist."

Castle Rock licensees, whether managers or tenants, "can virtually have any beer they want in the country". Indeed, an inspiring attitude rare in the pub trade.

And will there be any plans to reward the team at Castle Rock Brewery for all their hard work? "Chris has promised us all a treat," says Adrian. Chris quickly points out that at the moment, he can't give them the day off, so "they will have to wait until the dust has settled, and the new brewery is open and running on an even keel."

Colin says the company also intends, in the new brewery, "to name each of the vessels after the employees who have helped brew the winning beer to act as a small thank you for their efforts". After all, he points out, "they've made beer history, so it makes sense for them to have their names remembered for years to come".