The Fuller's Griffin Brewery Tour

The MA team discovers the home of London Pride.

Sometimes our work at MorningAdvertiser is a struggle against deadlines while juggling complex code and placating an angry salesman.

Other times, we get to go on tours around breweries - yay!

Wedged between the Thames and the A4 in Chiswick, West London, Fuller's brewery would seem to be a tightly compact little brewery with little room to move - let alone provide space enough to lead visitor around. Once you enter the site, however, you realise that the original layout hasn't changed much over the years. Cobbled roads and alleyways take you past one of the oldest Wisterias in the UK to the start point of the tour.

One of the Mash Tuns - Click for image for bigger picture

You follow the path of the beer, along walkways high up in the rafters, throughout it's glorious lifecycle from water to keg in this very hands-on experience. As you continue past the huge, modern, temperature controlled vats, the mash tuns and the copper whirlpools you can smell the hops, taste the malt and feel the heat as the water takes on the four main ingredients of the brewing process that slowly turn it into one of Fuller's award winning brews.

A copper is loaded with hops - Click image for bigger picture

Even the scale of this relatively small brewery is enough to make your head spin (although that could've been the 2 pints of ESB I managed prior to the tour) the 2 coppers alone have a capacity of 520 hl (380 barrels) each and are fired up every single day. Considering that the average pint of beer takes 5-7 pints of water to produce might give you some idea of the amounts involved in making just one barrel of London Pride.

The Fuller's Quality Control lab - Click for image for bigger picture

The tour lasts 1½ hours and is available to groups of 4-15 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 11am, 12pm, 1pm and 2pm. Adults - £6Children (over 14) - £4.50

Ring +44 (0)20 8996 2063​ to book.

For more information visit www.Fullers.co.uk​