Brew day starts at five and finishes when it finishes. Most of it is cleaning, some of it is waiting, and about ninety minutes of it is the part people imagine when they picture brewing.

Mash in

Grain is milled the night before and mashed at 64 °C. From there it is an hour of holding temperature and watching gravity, which is as dull as it sounds and as important as anything we do. Get this wrong and no amount of care later fixes it.

The boil

Ninety minutes, hops at three points, then whirlpool and a slow crash through the heat exchanger into the tank. This is the part that smells like a brewery from the street, and the reason Thursday tours are booked out.

Pitch and clean

Yeast goes in around four, harvested from the last batch of the same beer. Then the floor, the mash tun, the kettle and the hoses, which takes until seven and is not in anybody’s photographs.