BrewDog: The Brewery Tour

Hanging out into the icy North Sea, in the distant fishing town of Fraserburgh in Northeast Scotland, a flying Punk IPA-blue flag tells you where you are.

Hidden behind huge silver conditioning tanks, towers of bright casks and lock-ups loaded with ingredients, it’s like the kind of base camp you'd expect in an ‘80s kids movie: chaotic, cramped, loud, energetic. This is BrewDog.

It’s cold here. Remote. Nearer to Norway than the lights of London. Everything is overcrowded, piled up high; space is the stuff between everything else and there isn’t much of it. The upright silver torpedoes dominate because there are lots of them – 20, 24, 27, I don’t remember. In the far right corner as you enter is the mash tun and copper, heavy metal is blaring out of a stereo nearby, an assistant brewer is shovelling a mush of used hops. Turn left and the middle of the brewery, hidden in shadow behind a wall of boxes and tanks, is the bottling line, a clanking, chiming, busy unit. Next is packaging with pallets wrapped in black and a mountain range of boxes. The little online shop area takes up the back wall, a few t-shirts, open cases of beer, flat-packed boxes ready to be filled and sent to your house. Then towards the head offices, past a freezer turned to -80C, past a little kitchen and toilet (complete with Kerrang magazine and empty can of Lynx), past a wall of awards and into James and Martin’s office, which is empty apart from two tables, an old armchair, a corner unit and a few bottles. This is BrewDog HQ.

A little later we see the barrel store: “Do you want to see the barrel store?” Martin asks. Of course we do. It’s across the industrial unit, another lock up. Outside are empties, blackened by time, ready to be filled. Martin removes the bung and we dip our noses in. A ghost of the whisky within is like an olfactory echo, the angels share still sloshing around. Inside is like walking into an abandoned gangster movie. Derelict, cold, dark, tripping lights, broken glass, puddles on the floor. The barrels are piled up next to an open unit which feels incomplete without a battered and bloodied guy tied to a chair and facing three bruisers with guns and brick fists. It’s a strange building but made remarkable with a stack of old barrels, faded branding telling you of their past life, chalk-marked telling you of their future life.

To look at the brewery from the sea is to get a new perspective on it. The beach arcs around almost beautifully, a redness to the sand, a darkness to the water. There’s not much around and you realise how far from everything this is. From this side the brewery looks small, like a makeshift castle, like something from a kids’ fantasy story, patchwork and cobbled together. And in many ways it is just that. This place has been built from the imaginations of James and Martin, almost four years of work, quickly adding more and more, expanding until there was nowhere left to expand, no more room for big silver tanks or turrets of orange casks which can’t be built higher. It’s an incredible place.

And it makes you feel like anything is possible. Everything is possible. Less than four years from nothing to this. Another 18 months and it’ll be a new site, a bigger one. Breaking their own records all the time, brewing 24/7 to attempt to keep up with demand, it’s a frantic place, always busy, and over 30 work in the brewery alone, yet it’s like a choreographed routine where everyone knows their own parts as well as everyone else’s. It’s mesmerising to watch, to be a part of, even for just a day.

Yes, that is an ice cream van.

I like BrewDog. You don’t need me to tell you that. Seeing the brewery, making a beer, hanging out... it’s made me like them a whole lot more, to get a new respect and perspective on what they do and what they’ve done. Could you start a brewery today and then come back in March 2015 and say you will turnover £6million, have a restaurant and three bars, be available around the world, including major UK supermarkets, sending out 8,000,000 bottles of beer a year? It’s awe-inspiring. It’s awesome. And the brewery itself is a mad place, just like you’d expect, never stopping, always busy, filled with energy, controlled in chaos. It’s made me realise and appreciate just how much hard work has gone into it and that’s something you don’t see or hear about very often.

I’m now excited to try the beer we designed and brewed. It’s been lagering for six weeks and it needs some dry-hopping but it should be ready soon. I can’t wait.

Here I'm teaching Avery about hops. They add bitterness and aroma, I tell him. 

This has taken a long time to post because I’ve been writing about it for a magazine and wanted to get that done first, ensuring I didn’t double up on my words or the story. I’ve added some photos to facebook, if you want to see more (again, not all of them, as the best ones went to the magazine).

One for the brewers (or the writers, musicians, businessmen, filmmakers)…

I know a few brewers read this from time to time and I’m wondering something (just my curiosity, nothing more)… There are books that I read or films which I watch and then think: damn, I wish I’d written this. But, are there any beers out there which make you think: damn, I wish this was my beer?

Maybe you’d want the commercial success of it, the critical success or just the personal success, knowing that you’ve brewed something which you completely love. I think there must be at least one beer out there which you jealously crave as your own, maybe the one which made you love beer in the first place… And this can extend to home brewers too. Or, which do you wish you could recreate? And why not open it to everyone: which brewery do you wish was yours? Who is making the beer (or doing the business/marketing) which is most closely aligned to the type of thing you want from a brewery? Hell, if there’s books/films/songs you wished you written, then tell me them too. I’m in a spritely and curious mood this morning fueled by waking up early to write.

If I Were a Brewer...

…these are some of the fantasy beers that I’d want to brew.

A 4%ABV mild brewed with fresh cherries. Just because there aren’t enough 4% milds brewed with fresh cherries.

A 5%ABV oatmeal stout with a decently thick body, lots of chocolatey character and hopped with Santiam, Cascade, Crystal and a heck of a lot of Centennials. A chocolate orange bomb. I would also develop a 10%+ version of this.

A porter with peanut puree in, around 9%ABV, lots of toasty-bready-dark chocolate flavour and aged with fresh raspberries. Peanut butter, jam and chocolate sandwich in a glass. (And yes, I am aware of the Shorts Uber Goober beer which is similar to this and I really want to try it!)

Carrot cake beer. Somewhere between 6%-8%ABV, a malty base with lots of dried fruit sweetness (probably from the combo of pale malt and dark sugar), fresh carrot juice, some spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, clove), citrusy and earthy hops and fermented with a Belgian yeast.

A breakfast beer. Coffee oatmeal stout with blueberries, maple syrup and a smoky-savoury note from some smoked malts.

A quadruple-IPA. Super-strong and super-bitter (circa 15% and 150IBUs). Served with a teabag of more fresh hops in the glass for those who want even more bitterness (maybe I'd even develop a special dry-hop glass with a mesh compartment at the bottom to hold the hop bag).

A perfect lawnmower beer. 4%, best served ice cold and drunk from the bottle, a pale ale with plenty of sweet caramel and biscuity malt base and quenching citrusy-juicy hops. There should be so many of these beers around but I’ve yet to find one that I love.

I’d like to develop a mixing project quartet . They’d all be different (probably an IPA, stout, fruit beer and barley wine) called something exciting like 1, 2, 3 and 4 and the idea is that they're made to be mixed so that the drinker can create their own beers and experiment with mixing. For example, they might want to mix 1 and 4 to create a super hoppy barley wine, or maybe 2 and 3 to have a fruity stout. And if there were four beers to blend then there’s a lot of potential outcomes. Could be a fun and creative concept? And of course, the beers would work as single brews in their own right if the drinker didn't want to mix.

I’d perfectly combine Pliny the Elder and Ruination IPA to create Pliny the Ruinator!

As a homebrewer I would create perfect clones of some of my favourite beers so that I could drink them any time I liked. Or as a commercial brewer I'd want a regular range which included an IPA, a ‘house’ or best ale, a mild and a stout, with super-sized versions of all of them (for example, there'd be a 5% IPA and an 8% IPA, a 4% best ale and a 9% barley wine…), plus seasonals that include a Belgian-style ale, some barrel-aged experiments (including cherry brandy casks and calvados) and a fresh hop beer.

What would your fantasy (home)brewery make?

And if any brewery does any of these already then let me know. Or, if any breweries want to try these then go for it, just let me know when they are done so that I can try them!

My Visit to Thornbridge Brewery

What makes a few breweries rise up above all the others? What makes them special and unique? What makes them who they are? If you ever get a chance to visit Thornbridge Brewery you’ll find the answers to these questions. I first met the guys from Thornbridge at The Rake a few months ago. I had a lot of great things to say about them. This week I went ‘up north’ to the brewery with Matt, the same Matt from this Beer Night, to have a look around. It started early. Very early. I decided the best bet would be to train it there and back, but this meant eight trains overall. Eight. We arrived at Dronfield - home of the mighty Coach and Horses pub - at 10am and Kelly Ryan, the brewery manager, was there to greet us and drive us to work/the brewery (his car is so retro-cool, by the way, that he had Metallica on tape playing as we started driving!). Kelly is an amazing guy (he even sent me a text to remind me to bring a sandwich for lunch). He’s literally overflowing with beer knowledge, passion, love and enthusiasm. And he doesn’t stop. I think he only walked when we were there to slow him down, the rest of the time he was running (actually running). Reluctant Scooper has been to visit for a brew day (his article is so brilliant, you must read it) and he uses the term ‘ceaselessly bounding’. That works for me. The brewery is in the grounds of Thornbridge Hall and it’s a stunning place to go to work. The brewery is tucked away inconspicuously out the back. There’s a small brewhouse, an office, a lab and a few storage units. Inside the brewhouse is all the stuff you need to make beer (I won’t go into all that, read it in a book or here). Dave Pickering was in there brewing and Matt Clarke was running around, sorting out casks. At Thornbridge they brew one beer a day and have up to six fermentation tanks doing their stuff. The best thing: this place smells amazing! It’s full of that gorgeous ovaltine malt from the mash and there was a constant orange and tropical fruit hop sweetness. Lovely stuff. I couldn’t do math or science in school, it just didn’t stick. English was more my thing. After spending a day at Thornbridge I wish I’d been able to get the sciences because they make it sound so cool (they are number one in the periodic table of cool). I was completely fascinated by the whole scientific side to beer and it’s given me a greater depth of understanding about this stuff that I love to drink. And Kelly doesn’t make it geeky either. All the talk of science-stuff was glamorous; it wasn’t white coats, it was leather jackets. They were brewing Jaipur while we were there and we got to spend some time with Dave as he was brewing. He’s a really great guy, full of that same Thornbridge passion and knowledge which fills the air. And he was patient too as we kept asking questions about what he was doing and getting in his way as he tried to do his job. (He fancies brewing a smoky beer to go with the summer barbeques and he also said about making a small beer alongside Bracia, here’s my idea: take the small beer and age it on smoked oak chips. I have no idea if that’ll work or if it’s even possible but it sounds mighty good to me!). Dave managed to keep us quiet for a while as we cleaned out the mash tun. I went in with instructions of ‘push it towards the hole’. ‘I can do that’ I thought. I climbed a ladder and looked down. It was a pit of spent, hot, wet grain that looked like dark porridge. And it was pretty far down. It was at this point (the top of the ladder, no turning back) that a few things dawned on me: 1. I am terrible with heights. 2. I can go up ladders but not back down them. 3. I have a fear of sinking sand. Shit. ‘Just jump in’ Dave said, which was easy for him to say standing on the hard floor. With vertigo making everything swirl, the heat from below increasing the tension and a certain amount of pride at stake, I clambered up onto the narrow rim of the mash tun. Completely unstable and fearing a rather nasty fall (which only exacerbated the vertigo) I jumped in and slowly sunk about a foot, encased in a round tank, hot grain closing in, still sinking, not stopping. I gripped onto the side for dear life, the heat engulfing me, pulling me down. I almost yelled for help. But thankfully I stopped sinking. I was stable. I couldn’t move my legs but I wasn’t going further down. And I actually started to like the comfort of the heat through the wellies and the sweet smell of the grain as I began pushing and shoveling. Matt stood at the other end as I shoveled the hot stuff at him, frequently overzealously, burning his hands and making a real mess. Oops. With the tank clean I had to get back out again and I remembered my fear/inability of getting down ladders. Oh boy. I still had to climb out of the mash first, precariously balancing on the edge, trying not to look down as I made an awkward crab shape and tried to shuffle on to the ladder. I pretty much burnt my hand on the copper but I wasn’t letting go. I got a foot on the top wrung, then the other foot made it. It was a pretty sorry sight seeing me sweaty, shaking, covered in grist and coming down a ladder backwards, but I made it! We looked around the brewery some more and saw a few special things, including the sherry and Madeira casks that were used to make the Alliance trilogy. And you want to know something super-cool? These giant oak casks are now filled with Bracia! Yup, I know, how flipping awesome does that sound! We saw the special ingredients for one of their next brews: cocoa nibs, star anise and mandarin peel. We smelt plenty of hops (it may be geeky but I just love smelling the different hops). We tried some St. Petersburg stout aged on cocoa nibs which Stefano (the head brewer and all-round cool guy who had been busy in the office until then) declared to be very good (this declaration is a great sign for a beer; his tasting of it seemed to last forever, I was hoping that by saying I thought it was great I hadn’t made a complete palate faux pas, but a smile soon appeared and his eyes lit up. Phew.) We also got to check out some yeast which is analysed after every brew (fun science stuff which involved looking into a microscope!). They were checking some Jaipur yeast. Here comes a brutal yet beautiful truth of brewing Jaipur: the yeast dies to make it. It’s the ultimate sacrifice. It makes that beer and clearly realises that it has reached a certain pinnacle in its life and it can do no more. There’s something wonderfully romantic about that, I think. And we were even part of a little beer tasting in the office which allowed us to try three beers by Odell’s in Colorado. There aren’t many of their beers in the UK so this was pretty cool. The star was undoubtedly the IPA. Great stuff. When Kelly and Stef taste other breweries beers’ it’s clear to see why the Thornbridge beer is so good; their palates are sharper than Gordon Ramsay’s knife (and his tongue) and they pick up scents like hunting dogs. They swirl and sniff and pull out what they get, one flavour or aroma after the other, chasing them around the glass, searching for them. In the office we got to speak to Stef more. There were discussions of funk (Brettanomyces, that is) and barrel aging and I had a load of questions about the move to the new, bigger brewery. He is sorting it all out and the next few months are going to be crazy-busy for the guys up there. But the move will mean more beer so we’ll be able to get their stuff in more places and slake our thirsts much easier. They’ll also be able to knock out more bottles (they are playing around with bottle conditioning too, trying different yeasts, etc – more science stuff) which is a great thing. I am already excited about going up to visit the new place once it is up and running (eight trains you say?! I don’t care, I’d travel on double that to be there!) After work we hit their pub, the Coach and Horses. This is a dreamy place which is run by Kelly’s lovely girlfriend Catherine. We were in awe of the beer selection - bottled and cask. There were five Thornbridgers (not a typo) on cask and we started, in the only way possible, with Jaipur. It was just simply perfect. Biscuit and toffee malt base and then tropical fruits and hops-a-plenty giving a crisp and elegant finish. I could drink this all night. It was served through a sparkler though, a thing curious to my southern eyes. I asked for my second beer without the sparkler and to be honest I couldn’t taste a difference. It did however look better with the sparkler fitted. Kelly changed out of his work shirt and then it was just three mates at the pub talking about beer and music and TV and films and laser eye surgery and Korean food. Kelly then brought out his homemade lambic. Yeah, he ‘brews’ at home too. He’d taken some of their Blackthorn Ale (I was drinking that when he brought the lambic out, very nice indeed) and popped it into a bottle and left it to do its stuff for 18 months (there was some other detail to it, something about taking it from the pipes, I don’t know – Kelly, help me out here!). And it was really good. Creamy yet sharp yet sweet. Nice one. Dinner came next. Kelly, Matt and myself ordered three dishes and shared it around (it was a sharing kind of day). The oxtail was rich and oh-so-juicy, the brisket was like butter and the belly pork with Toulouse sausage and beans (a deconstructed cassoulet, if you like) was just brilliant (wicked crackling!). The menu is great, the food is proper pub grub and delicious and the portions are huge - this is a must-visit place. With dinner I had a pint of McConnels, their vanilla stout, which was magical (and made with real vanilla pods). It’s smooth, rich and roasty with a sweet hint of the vanilla. I’d wanted to try this for ages and wasn’t disappointed. Sadly there wasn’t time for dessert because we had to go. We didn’t want to, that’s for sure, but we had to. We did have time to split a bottle of Bracia before we left - a great way to end the day. And what an amazing day it was. A tiny insight into what’s going on up at Thornbridge and what’s to come. It was truly exciting and fascinating. It has made me taste better, think better and understand beer better. I now know the back-breaking effort that goes into making their beers, I’ve seen where it all comes from, I see everything that they do in the minute detail that they do it. I left invigorated and it has made me realise just why I love beer. Why it means so much. Why I spend the hours that I do searching for it, drinking it, reading about it, talking about it and writing about it. It makes all of that worthwhile when you see that there is so much passion on the other side and you see what the beer means to its brewers in places like Thornbridge. Innovation, passion and knowledge are their tag lines and you cannot fail to go anywhere without these being entirely evident. They know so much, they clearly love what they do and they want to try new things. There is so much energy around the place, it just feels right being around them, it feels comfortable and we felt welcome even though we were interrupting their hectic day with silly questions. But they all had so much time. And they are so generous too. Beer is for sharing and when you’ve got such great knowledge it just spills out and you cannot fail to learn an awesome amount from them. And the beer stands up to all of this. It is second to none. You just have to see the piles and piles of awards they have stacked up in the office to know this. You just have to try the beer to know this. On the train home I was sad to have left. I wanted to keep a piece of what I felt at the brewery with me. I wanted that feeling every day. But then I realised something. And it’s here as I sit down now with a Jaipur. We do get to feel a part of the brewery, we do get to experience it and we get it every time we drink their beer. That beer that we have in our hand is prepared with so much passion and enthusiasm that we taste the essence of the brewery, something special deep within it, something intangible, something missing from so many other beers. Their beers are ‘never ordinary’ - they are spectacular. They are special. The brewery is special. The people are special. Thornbridge is a remarkable place. And I thank them for allowing us that little insight into their world. If you want to buy their beers then go to beermerchants as they have the widest selection available that I've seen, including the Alliances, Bracia and the ever-so rare barrel-aged St Petersburgs. You can also get mini-casks from the brewery. And Kelly Ryan has a blog which you should be reading here.