A few months, I took my friend on a tour of the Camden Town Brewery for her birthday present. I'd never been on a brewery tour before and learnt a fair few things. However, two months has passed and I've forgotten a lot of my new factoids. Damn.
We arrived at the Brewery Bar, explained to the barman we were there for the tour and he told us to have some free beer and take a seat, which we happily did. We were waiting for a few more people to arrive, and after a little while, we started the tour with another two people. We were given safety glasses and a quick intro outside the brewery. Oh and the guide had brought some jugs of beer (how kind), he explained there is usually more people so we had more to drink.
It's quite amazing how the brewery has grown so quickly. The owner Jasper Cuppaidge started brewing in the basement of the Horseshoe pub in Hampstead and from there, started the brewery properly in the arches under Kentish Town West station in 2010. It's only 2013 people and they are everywhere! I guess this resonates with the general surge in craft beer appreciation.
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| The big tanks where the lager and ales ferment |
We tried lots of the different hops, and our guide explained that these are what really change the flavour of the lager or ale. He said both lager and ale start the same, but the fermentation process differs for each. Fermentation is the process which turns the fermentable sugars in the malt into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Lagers are made using bottom-fermenting yeast which sinks to the bottom of the fermenting vessel - this happens at a relatively low temperature.
Ales are made using top fermenting yeast, the yeast forms a thick head on the top of the vessel - this takes less time than a lager, and happens at a higher temperature.
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| Trying different hops - stored in the freezer |
Time for more beer as we made our way to the bottling/canning/casking area. The brewery is now making as much beer as it can in the arches, which is a lot but nothing compared to the big dogs.
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| Ready to go! |
Oh and I didn't know where the name IPA (Indian Pale Ale) came from so I asked, it comes from when we were over in India in the 19th Century, we still wanted beer to drink and the only way to get them beer was by ship which takes a long time. So the UK brewers made hoppier and stronger beers that would last the journey.
Sidenote: We went to see Stewart Lee's 'Much A-Stew About Nothing' on Tuesday and his piece about all the weird names that craft ale seem to have - for example: Fursty Ferret, Old Hooky and Wizard's Foot (I might have made that last one up) - made me chuckle.
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