Greene King bid to prove small is beautiful

Greene King, one of Britain’s biggest breweries, able to produce vast volumes of beer, is now scrapping for a share of the fast-growing craft sector. The Bury St Edmunds company has spent £750,000 on new brewing kit that will enable head brewer John Bexon and his colleague Chris Waters to develop a wide range of beers – cask, bottle and keg -- with production runs of between 15 and 30 barrels.

The new brewery is called the St Edmund’s Brewhouse after the king of East Anglia who was murdered by Danish invaders in 855. The brewing kit, built in Burton-on-Trent, has been shoe-horned into the front of the Art Deco main brewhouse that dates from 1938. The company is much older, opened in 1799, but an old malt kiln discovered on site suggests the making of ale goes back much further, to the 15^th century.

But now Greene King has come up-to-date with its new micro plant. John Bexon says: “It will allow us to be more flexible. Customers want greater beer choice today. We’ve put trial brews in pubs and the custom reaction has been encouraging.”

The new kit is based on the European model of mash converter and lauter [filtration] tun followed by a copper whirlpool for the boil with hops. Chris Waters, who previously worked at the small Cannon Brewery in Bury, can push six brews a day through the plant. John Bexon says a lauter tun extracts more malt sugars from the grain. It also allows such materials as oats, sorghum, spelt and rye to be used, which are hard to handle in a conventional English mash tun system.

The copper and whirlpool can take both whole hops and pellets. John and Chris have 25 varieties of hops available to them, including Cascade, Fuggles, East Kent Goldings, Galaxy and Willamette. The hop store indicates a determination to search for the best aromas and bitterness in new beers.

Brewing “liquor” is drawn from three 100-feet deep wells on site. The water is treated to suit individual brews and is “Burtonised” with sulphates for pale ales. John Bexon says the water in its natural state is mid-way between those available in the great brewing centres of Burton and Pilsen: Burton, the home of pale ale, is rich in gypsum and magnesium, while Pilsen, the birthplace of golden lager, has almost salt-free water.

All the Greene King beers, in the main brewery and the new micro plant, are made with Tipple, a relatively new breed of spring malting barley. The grain is grown on farms close to Bury and is “floor malted” in a local maltings. Many brewers feel that grain that is laid out to germinate on heated floors is superior to malt produced in rotating drums.

The brewers have drawn up a list of 60 recipes they will use and, with the help of local tasting panels made up of pub-goers, they will develop a core range of beers. John Bexon says historic beers culled from old brewery ledgers will be included along with modern interpretations.

The beers that emerge from the St Edmund’s Brewhouse are fermented in the main brewery where 60-barrels vessels can be converted to handle 15-barrel batches.

The beers that have been brewed to date include a Noble Craft Lager (5%), using pale malt and Tettnanger hops from the Bavarian Hallertau region. It’s fermented with the house yeast culture and is produced in just two weeks and it won’t set the taste buds alight.

The brewery is on firmer ground with a beer brewed for its Scottish subsidiary, Belhaven of Dunbar. Twisted Thistle IPA (5.6%) is an American-style pale ale with a mighty 45 units of bitterness created by Cascade, Challenger and Hersbrucker hops. Double Hop Monster IPA (7.2%) is late hopped in the copper with American, English and European varieties and has a massive attack of bitterness and tart fruit.

Yardbird Pale Ale (4%) is brewed in honour of legendary American jazz musician Charlie Parker, one of the great innovators who developed the “be-bop” style in the 1940s that paved the way for modern jazz. His nickname of Yardbird recalls his fondness for fried chicken. The beer is brewed – naturally – with American hop varieties.

Suffolk Porter (5.4%) packs a punch with 45 units of bitterness and a complex aroma and flavour of chocolate, liquorice, treacle and burnt grain. The grains include pale, crystal and chocolate malts, along with torrefied wheat and oats. Two beers celebrate St Edmund: St Edmund’s Golden Beer (4.2%) is a tart and tangy beer hopped with Cascade and First Gold. St Edmund’s Anniversary Ale (6%) is hopped with Cascade and has a big grapefruit/citrus character.

Greene King’s legendary Strong Suffolk (6%) is now brewed in the new plant. The beer recalls the great days of the “country beers” of the 18^th and 19^th centuries that were a blend of beers, some aged in wooden vessels. Strong Suffolk is such a blend: Old 5X (12%) is stored in wooden vessels for two years and is then blended 2:1 with BPA (5%), which stands for Best Pale Ale. The beers are brewed with pale and crystal malts with the addition of brewing sugar and are hopped with Northdown and Target varieties (31 IBUs). The finished beer has a spicy, oaky, sherry wine and iron-like intensity on aroma and palate with a hint of sourness. The finish is complex, with malt, a vinous sweetness and some tannins, balanced by bitter and earthy hop resins and the continuing hint of lactic sourness.

Greene King says bottle-conditioned beers can be produced in the new plant and let’s hope that is on the agenda. If ever a beer cried out to age in bottle with yeast it’s Strong Suffolk. It’s magnificent now and could only get better.