Dark Star started as a pub cellar project, but has graduated to a sophisticated new site.
Size may not be everything but it's mightily encouraging to find a brewery that began life in a pub cellar has now entered the ranks of the regional producers with spanking new equipment that can knock out 20,000 barrels a year.
The new Dark Star plant at Partridge Green in West Sussex looks like a scaled-down version of Cape Canaveral. It's all shiny stainless steel, with imposing mashing and boiling vessels linked to a bank of nine conical fermenters that seem on the point of taking off for a moon landing.
Head brewer Mark Tranter looks slightly bemused as he surveys his new train set. He's been running trial brews on the kit since before Christmas but the former 15-barrel brewery has closed and Mark is now operating a system that can produce 45 barrels twice a day.
Dark Star has come a long way since it started in 1994 in the cellar of the Evening Star pub in Brighton. The equipment was not much bigger than a home-brew kit but the hoppy beers became so popular that in 2001 a new brewery that could make 15 barrels a time was built at Ansty.
And now Ansty is history. Last week Partridge Green came on line and Dark Star is yet a further example of the spectacular success of the craft-brewing sector.
In fact, the history of Dark Star goes back beyond the Evening Star in Brighton. When I first came across a beer called Dark Star it was made by the Pitfield Brewery in north London in the early 1980s. The tiny production unit was in the premises of the Beer Shop, a legendary outlet for micro-brewed beers.
Dark Star history
The shop and brewery were run by Martin Kemp and Rob Jones.
Small though the operation was, they walked away with the Champion Beer of Britain title for Dark Star in 1987 and became affectionately known as the Yeastie Boys, a pun on the name of a rock group of the time called the Beastie Boys.
Eventually and amicably Martin and Rob went their separate ways, with Rob downsizing to the cellar of the Evening Star. It was good to see him at Partridge Green last week. He's a director of the company, happy to hand over the brewing side to Mark Tranter, who decided to become a brewer when he first tasted Rob's beers in the Evening Star.
Dark Star is a flourishing company with a sound business footing.
Chairman Peter Halliday and managing director Paul Reed have expertise in finance and marketing. They own three pubs — the Evening Star, Stand Up Inn in Lindfield and the Duke of Wellington in Shoreham — and the brewery.
They have invested £250,000 in Partridge Green, which despite the charmingly rustic name is an industrial estate near Haywards Heath.
I clambered up steep metal stairs to the Star Ship Enterprise deck, where Mark Tranter runs his brewhouse with the aid of computer controls and high-tech gizmos.
The kit, built by a Hungarian company, is based on the European system of mash kettle, lauter or filtration vessel and brew kettle.
It's fast and flexible, and allows more brews to be made than the conventional British one where mashing and filtering take place in one vessel, the mash tun.
Loyal to England
Where barley malt is concerned, Mark stays loyal to England. He uses the finest Maris Otter produced at Warminster Maltings in Wiltshire.
But, with a vast range of regular and seasonal beers, he uses 12 to 15 malts in total, including smoked, chocolate and crystal.
He is equally loyal to that great English hop, the East Kent Golding, but he also uses several New World varieties from the US and Australasia, including Amarillo and Cascade.
His American Pale Ale, bursting and zinging with citrus hop character, walked away with the Golden Ale award in last year's Champion Beer of Britain competition.
The main cask beers are Hophead, Best Bitter, Espresso, Festival, Sussex Extra Stout and the flagship Dark Star Original. Seasonal and monthly beers stress the flexibility of the new brewhouse and include a German weiss or wheat beer and a Belgian saison, along with a smoked porter, a ruby mild, an IPA and a Six Hop Ale.
A large crowd assembled at Partridge Green for the official opening of the new brewery. Among them were many licensees who serve Dark Star ales.
When I nervously asked them how they were faring in these difficult times, I got the universal reply: "Pretty good". It goes to show — and giant pubcos please note — that if you put beers with taste and character on the bar, the customers will come and drink.
As I left and picked up my coat from the office, I heard a voice on the answer phone leaving an urgent order. "I'm the landlady of the Dog & Duck and I'm out of beer. Please rush me a nine of Hophead and a nine of Best Bitter."
The real-ale revolution goes on.