The new plant in the National Brewery Centre is tapping into the growth in cask, says Roger Protz.
A famous name has been restored to the citadel of brewing, Burton-on-Trent. The opening of William Worthington's Brewery celebrates one of the great beer barons of the 19th century who turned Burton into the biggest brewing town on earth and transformed the making of beer with pale ale.
The new brewery is on a smaller scale to the vast plants that the likes of Allsopp, Bass and Worthington created in Victorian times.
The compact brewery can produce just 22.5 barrels, but master brewer Steve Wellington and his deputy Jo White are using it to full effect.
Great names from brewing's past are being conjured up from the new kit that has been placed in the National Brewery Centre — the former Bass Museum.
Visitors can watch the duo mashing grain and boiling with hops, and can then sample the products in the bar that is part of the complex. There's draught Worthington's White Shield and a real cask version of Worthington E.
I blinked when I saw the pump clip for E, for this was one of the notorious keg beers of the 1960s and '70s that threatened cask ale with oblivion. But the cask version is a reminder of the days, long before keg, when E was a celebrated Burton bitter, its name derived from the letter branded on wooden containers.
Steve Wellington has had a long career with Bass and now with Molson Coors, owner of the former Bass breweries in Burton. He knew he wanted to brew when, as a boy, he smelt the delightful piny and spicy aroma of Northdown hops in Cobbs Brewery in Margate, Kent, long ago closed by Whitbread.
Museum Brewery
For many years, Wellington, along with Jo White, produced growing volumes of bottled White Shield in a small plant — the Museum Brewery — within the Bass complex, using kit that had once been a pilot brewery at Mitchells & Butlers in Birmingham.
Now they have moved across the cobbled yard to their smart new brewery built by Grange Engineering in Burton.
Wellington would have liked to have brewed in wood, but costs dictated the new kit had to be made of stainless steel. But it's an ale-only brewery, a remarkable fact when you consider that the bigger brewing plants owned by Molson Coors in Burton are dedicated to producing eye-watering volumes of Carling.
Molson Coors has spotted that ale, in cask and bottle, has a growing
following. The bottled version of White Shield — a potent link with the India Pale Ales of the 19th century — is in such demand that it has been moved from the Museum Brewery to what used to be the Bass Number One plant.
And alongside draught White Shield and Worthington E, Wellington and White are producing Red Shield, a new cask ale that fills the gap left when Draught Bass became an InBev brand, with production switched to Marston's in Burton.
Steve Wellington is full of praise for Mark Hunter, Molson Coors chief executive, who sanctioned the cost of close to £1m for the new plant at a time when brewing in Britain is under the cosh.
"He's been the driving force," Wellington says. "He's seen that the ale market is growing." Along with the regular brews, Wellington and White will produce a range of seasonal beers, several of which will build on the famous White Shield name. There will be Spring, Autumn and Winter Shields, but such old styles as P2 Stout and No 1 Barley Wine, which weighs in at 10.5% ABV, will continue to delight visitors to the brewery centre.
Famous
P2 and No 1 are reminders that Burton was a famous brewing town long before it was possible to produce pale ale and IPA. Its fame was based on Burton Ale, a strong, sweet brown beer sold not only throughout Britain but exported to Russia and the Baltic states.
The No 1 Barley Wine brewed today by Steve Wellington is something of a misnomer, for this is a fine example of an old Burton Ale. It's a style that reverberated throughout the country: in the 19th century just about every British brewer had to have a Burton in its portfolio. In London, Fuller's had a Burton Export Ale until the 1960s, while a price list in the now closed Young's brewery listed a Burton.
It was the development of pale barley malt at the turn of the 19th century that enabled the Burton brewers to switch to paler beers.
The almost magical quality of Burton water, rich in gypsum and magnesium, brought out of the full flavours of malt and hops and encouraged brewers from London, Liverpool and Manchester to open plants in Burton to produce their own versions of
pale ale.
A short walk from the Worthington Brewery takes you to the main shopping centre in Burton where pride of place is given to a statue of a cooper fashioning a wooden cask. But brewing in the town is not just about the past. Coors, Marston's and Worthington's have been joined by newer breweries, Black Hole, Burton Bridge, Burton Old Cottage and Tower, in producing beer in the town.
In the bar of the visitor centre I raised a glass of real Worthington E and toasted the revival of brewing in what the Victorians called, with their usual breast-beating pomp, Beeropolis.