Drinking in the Dales

The commitment of small craft brewers is remarkable. Take the example of Robert and Debra Evans, who run Peak Ales in Derbyshire.

They had jobs in the NHS and teaching, respectively, and could have hung their hats on a pension. They also have two small children, yet they sold their family home in Chesterfield to fund their brewery and are now living in rented accommodation. They have no background in brewing: Rob had done some home brewing, but he wasn't serious and used kits, not full mash. But he loves drinking good cask ale and he and Debra wanted to run their own business.

So they put their home and their money on the line. Rob worked for a while at the Cannon Royall brewery, behind the Fruiterers Arms in Ombersley, Worcestershire, and learned two things from the experience: "Craft brewing is hard work, but I knew I could do it."

Then came the hard work of finding a suitable site for their own brewery. They spent most of 2003 looking at potential places, mainly the sort of industrial units used by many microbreweries. Nothing tickled their fancy, but then they had a stroke of luck. Rob was supping a pint in the Devonshire Arms at Chatsworth, near Bakewell, and told the licensee of his struggle to find a place to house his brewery. He was advised to contact the estate manager at Chatsworth House, the vast pile that is the ancestral home of the dukes of Devonshire.

In common with many country estates, Chatsworth House once had its own small brewery to quench the thirsts of the large retinue of managers and servants needed to run the estate. The old brewing vessels, known as the Twelve Apostles, are still in place at the estate, but have not been used for decades.

Rob was offered a barn close to the Chatsworth farm shop that draws large crowds eager to buy the big range of produce from the estate.

Rob and Debra could see the obvious advantages of being close to the shop and the two pubs owned by the estate, both called the Devonshire Arms. But there was hard graft ahead. The barn had been used to store hay, which had to be cleaned out, while the yard outside was shoulder-high in unkempt grass.

The money was quickly running out, but the Evans were helped by a grant from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), which replaced the old Ministry of Agriculture. They also won planning permission to open a brewery on the site and Peak Ales was eventually up and running.

The barn is spacious with solid stone floors, the perfect accommodation for the 10-barrel plant. The kit comes from Germany, but is designed to produce ale, not lager. It has a conventional mash tun and copper, along with hot and cold liquor tanks and four fermenting vessels.

Five years on and Rob and Debra are sufficiently successful to have to think of moving to bigger premises, but they are keen to stay on the Chatsworth estate: "It's our USP — unique selling point," Rob stresses.

Bottled beers​

They produce 1,500 barrels a year, 85% in cask draught form. Bottled beers are growing and they are packaged for Peak Ales by Nick Stafford's Hambleton Brewery in Yorkshire. The bottled beers — filtered at present, but Rob is keen to move into bottle-conditioned versions — are on sale throughout the Chatsworth estate and are displayed at the farm shop. They are also available at the world-famous Bakewell Pudding Shop, as well as local farmers' markets.

Cask beers — Swift Nick, Bakewell Best Bitter and Chatsworth Gold — are on tap in the two Devonshire Arms, as well as the freetrade in Buxton, Chesterfield, Derby and Sheffield.

Chatsworth Gold uses honey from the estate, which gives a smooth and delicious hint of sweetness to the beer. Rob and his brewer, Stuart Wragg, use the finest malting barley, Maris Otter, and such English hop varieties as Challenger, Fuggles and Goldings. Rob and Debra believe firmly in using the best ingredients.

"Brewing has to be good for the local economy and the local community," Debra says. "Word of mouth is the best form of advertising — we get locals talking about us."

"We have steady growth year on year," Rob adds. "People are seeking out cask ales — cask is now the drink of choice. But we couldn't have succeeded but for progressive beer duty." It's difficult to imagine a Chancellor of the Exchequer helping the brewing industry, but when Gordon Brown was in the job he brought in lower rates of duty for brewers producing fewer than 30,000 barrels a year.

The Evans believe the demand for cask beer will force the giant pubcos to relax their demands for ruinous discounts and will give small craft brewers better access to market.

Peak Ales is booming in a small way, with extra staff needed to keep the brewery ticking along. Stuart Wragg is a former printer who went on a Brewers' Laboratory (Brewlab) course to learn the necessary skills and he now has two helpers, Michael and Tom. Debra has two women to help her with the books and office work.

I hope Rob and Debra can afford a new house in the not too distant future. But I doubt they'll ever be rich enough to bid for Chatsworth House.