Cobbett would hail Surrey's ale revival

Brewing is blossoming down on the farm in Surrey, which would please the county’s great sage, William Cobbett.  The politician and pamphleteer, most famous for Rural Rides, published in 1830, was a champion of good ale and railed against the “vile practice” of brewing tea, which he claimed was ruining the health of impoverished farm labourers.

The radical reformer was born in his father’s pub, the Jolly Farmer in Farnham, now renamed the William Cobbett. A few miles away, the Frensham Brewery, run by a young couple, Emily and Miles Stephens (above), are keeping Cobbett’s ideals alive in a former dairy where they recycle grain and hops for animal feed and compost.

Close by, at Tongham on the famous Hogs Back ridge, the brewery of the same name is not only the leading beer maker in Surrey but also grows its own hops. Owner Rupert Thompson and his team planted hops last year on 2½ acres of land across the road from the brewery at Manor Farm.

The plants were harvested at the beginning of September and are the first new hops to be grown in Surrey for 50 years. They will be used in Hogs Back’s celebrated beers, including TEA – Traditional English Ale – and A over T, which stands for Ales over Tongham, though the cruder vernacular interpretation will not be lost on you.

As well as the English version of the famous Cascade variety, Rupert Thompson (seen on the right below with head brewer Miles Chesterman and the brewing team) has restored a once-famous hop called the Farnham White Bine. It’s believed to be the forerunner of the world-famous Golding, still grown extensively in Kent and other hop-growing areas.

Hogs Back is 23 years old and has grown from a tiny micro to a substantial regional brewer. Rupert Thompson, who worked for Bass and Morland, and ran Brakspear through his company Refresh UK before it was taken over by Marston’s, has grown production at Tongham with great verve. Four additional fermenters were added in 2013, requiring the roof of the old farm building to be carefully removed and replaced.

As well as the range of cask and bottled beers, Hogs Back has added a cloudy cider and brews its own lager Hog Star, which is aged for two months. An 80-barrel dual purpose vessel has been added to make lager production possible. The brewery has a large shop that sells its own products along with a substantial range of other beers from both the UK and abroad, including many Belgian specialities: www.hogsback.co.uk; 01252 783000.

In sharp contrast, Frensham, launched in 2014, can truly be described as a micro, with a five-barrel plant based on former milk tanks used at Pierrepont Home Farm. Emily and Miles Stephens describe their brewery as being in area of “outstanding natural beauty”, on a footpath that cuts through Tankersford Common and Frensham Ponds. “Ponds” is a misnomer, for the Little and Great Ponds form Surrey’s equivalent of the Lake District. The ponds are popular with yachtsmen and lie in 900 acres of heath land that provides an important habitat for wildlife.

Emily and Miles are dedicated walkers and discovered the farm while hiking in the area. They were keen to start a boutique brewery and both the farm and the Countryside Restoration Fund helped them convert a 17^th-century barn into a suitable place to make beer.

The Stephens’ aim is to recycle 100 per cent of the ingredients they use: spent grain goes to feed Jersey cattle on the farm while used hops make excellent compost. As far as possible, English materials make up their bulk of their recipes, with Maris Otter malting barley balanced by Challenger and Northdown hops, though some American Cascades are also used. The local water is hard and needs no treatment and the Stephens stress they add no sugar or artificial colourings.

Miles is a self-taught brewer and also a keen musician. He did community housing work before opening the brewery. Emily has a useful grounding in the drinks industry: her main claim to fame is building sales of a vodka brand, Heavy Water, and her marketing skills can be seen in the well-designed promotional material for Frensham.

The two regular beers are Rambler, a 3.9% golden ale, and Forager, 4.5%, a traditional bitter but with a smoky edge from the addition of oak chips. A seasonal porter called Owlswood is 6% with pale and chocolate malts joined by coriander, juniper berries and orange peel. It’s reminiscent of William Cobbett’s recipe for porter that used spiced liquorice root, Spanish liquorice and capsicum, though the Stephens would stop short of using nine pounds of treacle.

The beers are on sale in local pubs, including the William Cobbett in Farnham, as well as clubs such as the British Legion. The beers can also be bought for takeaway from the brewery shop, which is open Thursday to Saturday, in two-pint containers or boxes ranging from five litres to 20. The courtyard surrounded by farm buildings has been turned into an attractive beer garden. www.frenshambrewery.co.uk; 01252 793956.

It has taken Surrey some time to recover from the loss of its major brewery, Friary Meux in Guildford. It became part of the national Allied Breweries group, which closed the brewery in 1969. Friary Meux owned close to 1,000 pubs in the county and surrounding areas and it left a large hole that has taken decades to repair.

The key figure behind the revival of brewing in Surrey is Dave Roberts at the Pilgrim Brewery in Reigate (seen above with his wife Ruth and brewers Tim Rushforth and Andy Biggs). Pilgrim has been in production since 1982 and its impact has been national, rather than local. Dave was a founder member of SIBA, the Small Independent Brewers’ Association, in the 1980s where he played an influential role. As a former civil servant, he knew his way round the labyrinths of government and was able to argue the case for a sliding scale of duty for brewers with the key people who advise ministers.

The result was the introduction of Progressive Beer Duty by the last Labour government. PBD kick-started the explosion of new small breweries that pay substantially reduced levels of excise duty compared to larger producers.

Dave Roberts didn’t enjoy the benefits of PBD when he launched Pilgrim. It was the first new brewery in Surrey for 100 years and he faced stiff competition from the likes of Young’s and other London brewers who were active in the county.

It was hard pounding for many years and at one stage Dave lost his only pub, the Rising Sun in Epsom It was leased from Punch and the pubco sold it over Dave’s head to Young’s. But he hung on and has reaped the rewards he deserves. Production has doubled in recent years. Pilgrim supplies some 40 pubs in the area and is busily adding new beers to the core range of Quench, Surrey Bitter, Progress and Quest. Brewery tours are available: www.pilgrim.co.uk; 01737 222651.

There are now 14 breweries in Surrey. One of the front runners is Ascot Brewery in Camberley, launched in 2007 by Chris and Suzanne Gill. It now has an impressive 70 regular outlets for its beers. Its range of bottle-conditioned beers are suitable for vegetarians and vegans while the draught range is made up of 11 regular beers and many seasonal, including a series of “single hop” IPAs: a new version is produced every month, using a different hop variety.

Chris has also experimented with ageing beers in oak casks. Several of the beers have an animal connection, such as Alley Cat Ale, Posh Pooch, Penguin Porter and Rhino Rye while two stouts, Anastasia’s Exile and Anastasia’s Imperial are named after the member of the Russian royal family thought to have survived the killing of the Romanov’s following the revolution of 1917.

The newest brewery is Hop Art, which opened in March at Blacknest Industrial Park near Farnham. It's run by old friends Erik Van Dongen and Tony Scardarella who are brewing seven craft beers, draught and bottle condirioned, including Golden IPA, US Amber, Hoppy Blonde and Rood.

After years in the doldrums, brewing is alive and flourishing in Surrey and the end products can be enjoyed in 70 pubs listed in the new edition of the Good Beer Guide and used to raise a toast to William Cobbett and his passion for good ale in both his birthplace, the William Cobbett at 4 Bridge Square, Farnham (above), and in William Cobbett’s Real Ales. The last named is a beer shop in Dorking (23 West Street), run by Tim and Helen Sullivan, who have added a micro-pub at the rear with room for 13 people and a small, ever-changing stock of Surrey’s fine ales.

Best not to ask for a cup of tea.