My Beerish Trip Back To England.

[GuingesRock]

St Austell Brewery is a Victorian Brewery with a lot of history. They still use much of their original equipment. All their beers are single stage fermented for one week and then put in the cask. They skim yeast off the surface and harvest it. The use pellet hops for the boil and leaf hops for late additions. They make a big deal about their “special water” which comes from a “special spring”. They no longer have a cooper so all the casks are metal. The brewmaster has developed his own hopping technique called “fusion” and they also make a big deal about that and say it makes their beers special. “Fusion” is basically, after the boil, the wort at 97 degrees C is passed over leaf hops in a mash tun and the brewer said the wort “passes through the bed of leaf hops". All mashes are 1 hour at 65 degrees C and all boils are 1 hour and 15 minutes.

In the pictures below, you can see in reverse order: beer being casked, new fermenters, old wooden fermenters still in use, malt mill, old “copper” still in use, sacks of speciality malt being loaded up to the top floor where the malt mill is, more sacs of malt and some sour beer being aged in wooden casks, bottling room.
They export their beer to most countries but not able to export to the US, said they wouldn’t let their beer in. Probably something to do with the big US brewers I suspect.

[chalmers]

Great pictures! Hoping to have a few of my own when I'm in Scotland in 3 weeks. Any must-visit (beer or not) spots on the mainland? Won't make it to any of the Isles, unfortunately. Doing a loop from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Fraserburgh, Inverness, Oban, and back to Glasgow.

[GuingesRock]

Chalmers, I was in Ayrshire, Scotland and the draught Guinness was just like it is in Ireland...Amazing, delicious and slides down like cream (too easily), Ayrshire is just across the water from Ireland so I am not sure what it is like in the rest of Scotland. I can't drink Guinness in Canada...it's horrid, not much better in the UK either. It is worth going to Ireland just for the Guinness and the pub sing songs. Forget about the beautiful scenery, it's foggy and rainy and you won't see anything.

Have a great trip! You are going to some beautiful places.

[Tony L]

I would love to see the south of England around the Dorset area as my ancestors on my fathers side came from there ( Legge) in the 1700`s

[GuingesRock]

Tony, check out Poole in Dorset, the tourism video here. I lived and worked (and played) in Poole for 3 years. Beautiful and exciting holiday place with amazing beaches. I’d recommend it as being a bit more exciting than Cornwall which is another popular tourist place, but Cornwall has less going on in terms of night life etc.

more dorset videos

[Tony L]

It do look good Mark. Thanks for posting.