It is a little known fact that Alistair Darby, managing director of Marston's Brewing Company, judges much about a person on first meeting them upon the shininess of their shoes. Unless you've got suedes on you'd better make sure you scrub them up if you wish to impress him
.So it is no surprise to learn that the Marston's brew house shines and sparkles like a brilliantly polished pair of shoes. It is the first thing you notice after you clamber up the iron steps to the brewing nerve centre: manicured mash tuns, coiffeured coppers and flawless floors.
So why was I, a drinks editor with a questionable record of cleanliness (I have easily the messiest desk at Publican Towers) allowed into the inner sanctum of one of the world's best known and most classic breweries? I was there to oversee and run the rule over the brewing of my own batch of Marston's Pedigree. I felt this was a dangerous move on Marston's part. It wouldn't take me long to tell you that Adam Withrington and the art of craft don't get along. In my school days it was always my clay pots and iffy paintings that were shunted away at the back of the classroom, so visitors wouldn't be able to see them.
But I was assured this wouldn't be a problem and after spending only five minutes with the brewing team I could see I was in safe hands. What you learn quite quickly is that the modern brewing process at the brewer of a national brand (and with its wide distribution I think it's safe to call Marston's Pedigree that) is a well-oiled and efficient machine.
Having only ever produced beer in micro-breweries it was amazing to see how automated the 'big brewing' process has become. It may sound obvious, but is not something that becomes clear until you actually see the whole thing in action. My morning consisted simply of pulling a couple of levers and spending time behind a big bank of computers, checking levels and temperatures.The Marston's brewers have several beers on the go at the same time throughout the day, so the process has actually become an exercise in getting your timings exactly balanced; the beer has to move from place to place at the right pace.
The only bit of elbow grease I really had to apply all day was the addition of the hops to the copper. But while some might see this removal of manual labour from some of the process as a shame, what became abundantly clear is how much quality has become central to everything Marston's does.Indeed, with the checks, balances, care and attention, it was hard to see how poor beer could be produced. Licensees who serve a bad pint are running out of excuses.
The brewing
1. The mash
We started the process with the addition of the foundation liquor to the mash tun, which fills the open space under the plates (situated at the bottom of the mash tun). We then had to add the grist (ground malt) to the liquor. However, this process is not automated and required me to pull a lever to open a slide allowing the grist to enter the mash tun. The speed at which this happens has to be just right. Too fast and the tun will fill up with grist too quickly, blocking up the filters. Too slow and you simply won't get the mash temperature right (which needs to be 66ÞC).
The brewers had a unique way of working out how to know whether the speed of the grist falling into the mash tun was correct - essentially it had to do with the sound being made by the grist hitting the water. But this phrase is certainly not repeatable in a family publication such as this… There are two mash tuns in the Marston's brew house. Today we were brewing on mash tun one - not that this made any impression on me. Surely one mash tun is the same as any other? Apparently not, as mash tun two is more temperamental - with the temperature having a tendency to wander, which means a lot more attention needs to be paid when the brewers are adding the grist to the water.
Meanwhile number one is a master of its trade. "It's like brewing on cruise control," says Norman Yates, the Marston's shift brewer who was helping me through the morning's brewing.As the mash took place the brewers began the process of warming up the coppers - the next destination for my Pedigree."In years gone by people would have been running around, opening valves to let steam in to heat the copper. Now it's all done by a few clicks on the mouse," explains Norman.
2. The copper and whirlpool
After an hour of standing in the mash tun, I pushed the button to start the run off of my Pedigree, currently merely humble wort, into the coppers to be boiled.Probably the least automated part of the brewing process was up next, with me adding the hops, which were 'pelletised' rather than in their natural form. This is a common occurance in breweries today because pellets are easier for brewers to handle as well as ensuring better consistency of brew.
After an hour of being boiled the wort was passed into a new vessel, the whirlpool, which acted as a means of filtering the liquid by separating the solids and liquids.The unfermented beer was then ready to go into fermentation tanks - but not before it had passed through the paraflow cooling system which cooled the beer down from near 90ÞC to 18ÞC.
3. The Union system
And then my Pedigree was transferred to the fermentation tanks. After a day inside there my beer (quite a journey, this!) was dropped into the world famous Union set system. One hundred years ago the system was widely used but as bottom line and cost have become a bigger issue, almost all brewers have abandoned the system.
However, Marston's has persevered - convinced it gives the brewer an edge on quality over the opposition. "It is basically a purification system for the yeast. We don't think you can make and keep your yeast better by any other method," says Phil Parkinson, brewer in charge of brewing and fermentation at Marston's. The Union sets consist of row upon row of 'troughs' which sit upon wooden casks. Because these troughs are slightly tilted the beer runs off into end troughs and is then fed into the casks underneath. The yeast is separated and fed off into swan neck pipes and fed back to the top of the set.It is unlike anything you will see in a modern brewery.
The don of beer writers, Michael Jackson, described the union system as "a magic machine that looks as if it had been designed by Xeat Biason or some barmy professor in a Rupert Bear story".I found that to walk to the top of the main Union room is a major experience. A huge testament to great brewing - row upon row of Unions and fermenting beer. In these heathen times of brewery closures and consolidation this is as close to the "cathedral of brewing" - as Roger Protz once put it - as you can get.And it was here we laid my Pedigree to rest for the moment giving it four days to ferment.
4. Gravity and cleansing
I returned during that period to check on my beer - with Neil Jackson, one of the few specialist Burton Union operators in the world. We needed to check the beer's gravity - which is essentially a way of checking how much sugar had been converted into alcohol by the yeast. The more sugar still present in the beer, the less the gravity will be at the required level.And even after this process was finished there was a further period of two days when the beer was cleansed, getting rid of the last of the remnants of the hop debris, as well as in the words of Phil, "taking the edges off it and maturing it".
All my own work (well, sort of...)
As I left Burton for the final time I wondered whether this batch of Marston's Pedigree, sullied by the hand of Withrington, would survive the racking process…
I need not have had any fears. A week later I was visited by the marketing team at Marston's who presented me with the final product. My Marston's Pedigree, bottled and with a special label. A picture of yours truly on the label in fact.
Apparently in the same way that Pedigree is the offici