Focus Wales: Breconshire Brewery
"Excuse me. Do you know where the Breconshire Brewery is?" The taxi driver at Abergavenny train station looks flummoxed. I tell him it's in a place called Ffwdgrech. Wiping the deluge of flob from his face, he now looks flummoxed and annoyed.
He hasn't heard of the Breconshire Brewery.
"I don't care much for that warm and flat beer," he declares, "it just don't taste right."
Placed precariously in the incapable hands of 'Sat-Nav', which henceforth should be rechristened 'Prat-Nav', we weave and wahey on country roads that swerve and heave beneath the mist-covered Brecon Beacons.
This part of Wales makes up for its serious lack of vowels with some stunning scenery, and Brecon, home to the Breconshire Brewery, is lovely too.
A historic cathedral town with a bucolic backdrop, it attracts white-water riders, mountain bikers and hikers.
Head brewer Justin Grant has been brewing top gear here for five years now. He helped set up the brewery in 2002 after experiencing the last death rattles of Brakspear in Henley-on-Thames.
"It was a very sad day when it closed," he recalls, wistfully. "The beer has been restored and Wychwood has done a great job in making a great beer - but it's different." Having abandoned other callings - first in archaeology and then in "simultaneous interpretation" (no, I don't either) - Justin arrived at Breconshire with a masters degree in brewing from Herriot-Watt in Edinburgh.
"A degree doesn't really help you run a brewery," says Justin. "It equips you with all the necessary chemical equations and other bits and pieces, but brewing is less academic and more about aptitude. It's a cross between a black art and a science - and it's better to be skilled in the former."
Breconshire's ales are brewed using water which cascades down the Brecons and ingredients sourced solely from the UK. "We feel very strongly about keeping it British and local," said Justin. "We have some fantastic farmers in the UK and we should support them."
Word of Justin's beers has spread quickly thanks, in no small measure, to the fact that the brewery is owned by CH Marlow, a beer wholesaler that supplies pubs throughout South and West Wales. The six regular beers and smattering of seasonal and special editions run a gamut of styles from the amber-coloured flagship Golden Valley to The Spirit of the Dragon, a strong seasonal that is aged in oak whisky casks for two to three months. Each year it also brews a wheat beer and a green hop beer.
"When we started, the beers were too hoppy for locals," says Justin. "Wales can be a little conservative when it comes to beer, but we try to aim for a range of styles, covering traditional beers through to newer and more innovative styles."
Breconshire Brewery is just one of many microbrewers putting the 'ale' into Wales. Last year two dozen Welsh craft brewers joined forces to create the Assembly of Welsh Independent Brewers.
"Wales has traditionally been a difficult market as the temperance movement was particularly strong here and slowed down the development of the Welsh brewing industry," explains Justin.
"Yet the Welsh beer scene is now growing all the time. In the past few years, the number of micros has gone from a dozen to more than 40. Progressive Beer Duty has helped, but you've still got to make beer that people want to drink and Welsh craft beer is gaining momentum."
