Tag: Worthington

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Exclusive: Wanted – New Brewer For One of World’s Best Beers

Perfection

If you love beer, and think you’re a good brewer, this is like Masterchef and Pop Idol rolled into one.

Steve Wellington, Jedi Master Brewer of Worthington White Shield, is looking for a new Padawan.

White Shield has long been a legendary, semi-mythical beer, with a hardcore of devotees sighing wistfully at its very name, a few others going “Dunno, can’t see what all the fuss is about,”and a vast majority in the middle saying, “White Shield? Is that still around?” or “White who? Never seen it.”

For me, it’s one of the best beers in the world.  It traces an unbroken lineage back to the 1830s as one of the genuine IPAs brewed in Burton on Trent and sold in Calcutta.  When I was researching Hops and Glory I found records of it being imported to the Calcutta docks.  It was dwarfed in size by Bass and Allsopps. but did steady business.  Allsopp’s is no more, and Bass is in trouble.  White Shield has certainly had its ups and downs, almost disappeared after brewing was contracted out from Burton, but was rescued and revived by Steve about a decade ago.  Since then, it’s won Champion Bottled Beer of Britain and Steve has been named Brewer of the Year.

But all this was happening on a tiny, ancient three-barrel museum plant, that looked lovely, had a personality of its own, but was showing her age.

That’s why, at a time when most UK macro brewers were disinvesting in ale, Molson Coors took the relatively enlightened step of giving Steve a brand new, state-of-the-art £1m brewery to play with in the newly reopened National Brewery Centre in Burton.  The macro has seen that there is a future in ale and decided to take a bit of an interest.

The new plant has been operational since the start of the year.  So far, the only thing Molson Coors have done wrong with the new William Worthington Brewery is let marketing have the final say on the names of the new beers that come out of the plant alongside White Shield.  Marketing has misunderstood the brand and declared that every beer has to have ‘Shield’ in its name.  So the first seasonal is called ‘Spring Shield’.  Nice beer, silly name – the master brand is William Worthington, guys.

Anyway, within a few months the new brewery was working at capacity, and today Molson Coors will announce that it brewed more beer in the first quarter of 2011 than the old girl did in the whole of 2010.  So successful is it, they will also be announcing the search for a new brewer to work with Steve and his fellow brewer Jo White.  It’s a dream job: one of Britain’s oldest and most revered brands, on one of Britain’s most modern and advanced small breweries.

Interested brewers should visit http://molsoncoors.com/en/People.aspx for more details.

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Burton gets its brewing museum back – along with a brand new brewery

Burton MP Janet Dean with Coors and Planning Solutions bods who are giving the Home of Brewing a lot to smile about.

It used to be the Bass Museum, then it was the Coors Visitors Centre, and for the last 18 months its been an abandoned, heartbreaking relic of the world’s greatest brewing town’s former glories. But tomorrow sees the official announcement of the opening of The National Brewery Centre. Coors have done a deal with a company called Planning Solutions to reopen the museum by Easter 2010. Planning Solutions run a host of leisure and tourism attractions across the country. According to Coors and Planning Solutions, “it will retain key elements of the existing facilities, updating and reorganising the site to create a unique visitor attraction that will ensure its success well into the 21st Century.” This comes after widespread protest from the town and the wider beer community. But I always felt that Coors were looking for ways to make it work – the PR mess that would have resulted from permanent closure would have been very damaging, and the people I’ve spoken to up there show a genuine enthusiasm for the chunk of brewing industry they now own. Planning Soluitons aims to introduce animatronics and ‘live’ actors to help entertain and inform visitors in full historical character. “The public’s expectation is ever-greater and we will make sure that all of the exhibits fully-engage with people of all ages,” says CEO John Lowther, “Having live actors fulfil roles previously held by plastic dummies, the visitor experience will be completely transformed. It will be a lot more interactive and immerse visitors into an historical setting.” Bars and restaurants will be incorporated in the plans for the new centre and these will be open to the general public and available for private bookings and live performances. The move has been welcomed by the town, its MP and the volunteers who have kept the exhibits in good condition while the museum has been closed. This enthusiasm stretches from the past to the future – the museum will feature a new 30-barrel brewery, overseen by Steve Wellington, legendary brewer of Worthington White Shield. This will be the hub for the full national launch of Red Shield, a new cask ale from the Worthington brand, and will also allow more brewing of legendary beers such as P2 Stout and No.1 barley wine. I spent two days in Burton a couple of weeks ago brewing with Steve and hearing about the future plans, and my fuller account of it will be in February’s edition of CAMRA’s Beer magazine.

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Museum Brewery Queen’s Ale Part II

I’m getting shoddy. Just found my tasting notes for the Queen’s Ale I mentioned yesterday.

We opened a bottle in the brewery at around 9pm, twelve hours into our two day brewing session. It poured a dark chocolate brown with an acne-yellow head. Look, I know that makes it sound unappetising, but that’s the colour it was. Maybe it was just the weak light in the brewery office.
There was a dusty old ale aroma at first, followed by sherry, port, chocolate, chicory, and hints of leather and wet autumn leaves. And then, on the palate it went berserk. It did the whole lot – the sweetness and acidity of wine, a meaty umame taste in the middle and strong bitterness at the end. All these flavours got on with each other quite happily, united in a pleasingly smooth mouthfeel. Molasses and caramel were there, but only fleetingly. After the overture, a second mouthful brought out touches of honey, banana, cinnamon and espresso grounds.
Steve and Jo, who brewed the beer, hadn’t previously tasted one as old as this. They were shocked at how dramatically it had developed since its youth as a mere barley wine.
John Keeling, who brews Fuller’s Vintage Ale, talks about ‘sine waves’ in his beer, trying to explain how the character ebbs and flows over the years it ages.
I’ve no idea what kind of maths, physics, chemistry or plain old-fashioned juju is going on in Queen’s Ale. But you can understand why it’s perfect for a Christmas pudding. And why I was so upset about using it for this purpose.

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As posh as the queen

I spent two days in Burton-on-Trent last week, brewing No.1 Barley Wine and P2 Stout in the White Shield Brewery with Steve Wellington. I’m spending today writing up the story – complete with some exciting news about the future of the brewery – for a piece in CAMRA’s Beer magazine. It’ll be running in the Spring 2010 issue, out around February.

Anyway, while I was up there, Mrs PBBB – sorry, The Beer Widow – phoned me to discuss Christmas pudding plans. We’ve never made our own Christmas pudding before, and she’d been rooting around for recipes. This is the week you ‘traditionally’ make your pudding, apparently. Anyway, she’d found a Delia recipe which called for some barley wine and stout. Hey, I was brewing barley wine and stout! There was no barley wine near to hand, but I was sure Steve would let me have a bottle of P2 for the pud.
But Steve went one better than that. Yes, he gave me several bottles of P2. But when I told him what I wanted it for, he also gave me a bottle of Queen’s Ale.
This is a special brew of No.1 Barley Wine brewed in 2002 to commemorate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. There are not many bottles left lying around the brewery, and we’d just polished one off for elevenses because Steve hadn’t tasted it for a while. It was sublime – dark and rich and sherrylike but not too aggressive. The age on it had done wonderful things, creating a beer that was still a beer but as soft and mellow and deep and satisfying as a vintage Bordeaux.
The thing is, Buckingham Palace use it to marinate the fruit they put in the Royal Christmas pudding. And that’s why Steve very, very kindly gave me a bottle to bring home for TBW.
This was one of those crises of conscience. All I wanted to do was stash it safely in my cellar, or maybe sneak it up to the study to enjoy to myself on a dark and stormy night. But Steve had only given it to me because of the pudding story. It seemed like a waste for such an amazing beer. But I wouldn’t have it in my possession otherwise. With a heavy heart and some anguished mewling noises, I gave it to TBW. On Friday night, after a few tweaks to the Delia recipe, she poured it over some fruit.
Well, at least our Christmas pudding will be as posh as the Queen’s.
Yesterday was the final mixing of the pudding before cooking. Its traditional to gather round and let each family member have a stir, and make a wish as they do so. I wished I could have some more Queen’s Ale.
Later, I went down to tidy the beer cellar and try to make some room – it’s a bit overfull at the moment. And lo, as I tried to make sense of the barley wine and vintage ale shelf, I found not one, but two bottles of Queen’s Ale that the generous-to-a-fault master brewer of Burton must have given me when we were working together brewing Calcutta IPA, my Hops and Glory beer.
The magic of Christmas is at work already.

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