Brakspear brewed in Oxfordshire - 2 years on…

The Brakspear Brewing company brewery is celebrating two highly successful years of brewing, following its relocation to the Wychwood Brewery in the North of Oxfordshire in Spring 2004.

Sales of Brakspear cask and bottled beers have been increasing dramatically over the last two years, with free trade sales of draught ales up by 40% and bottled beer sales in supermarkets up by a stunning 312% year on year.

Rupert Thompson Managing Director of Wychwood comments:

“Brakspear’s beers have been described by leading beer writers as a national treasure, on a par with the best wines of Burgundy or Bordeaux. They are truly classic English ales and an important part of the Thames Valley’s heritage.

We have always believed that the rare “Double Drop” fermentation system lay at the heart of Brakspear’s characteristic complex flavours. And in an act of faith we enlarged the Wychwood Brewery to create a separate Brakspear Fermenting room where we installed the original vessels from Henley, complete with the Double Drop system.

I think the sales success we are now enjoying is testament to this act of faith and the brewing skills of our team at Wychwood”

Brakspear Organic is an easy drinking fragrant and fresh tasting bottled beer that has been a serial award winner since its launch in 2000. It is proving so popular that most supermarkets now stock it nationally.

Not content to just match the Brakspear beers of yore, Wychwood’s head brewer, Jeremy Moss has also created a new English beer style in Brakspear Triple. This is a high strength (7.2% abv), triple fermented, triple hopped, bottle-conditioned beer in individually numbered bottles. With its high abv, rich rum and Madeira like flavours and solid hop background, this is a beer to be savoured on its own or partnered with strong cheeses or fruitcake. Served in a large balloon type glass, it is a surprising and successful after dinner drink. This outstanding brew was awarded a silver medal at the International Brewing awards 2005, the largest brewing exhibition in the world. Stocked by Waitrose and Sainsburys nationally.

Editors Notes:

* ‘Double Drop’ fermentation system

Double Dropping, also known as the Dropping System of fermentation was for the first half of the 20th Century the most popular method for the fermentation of traditional English Ales.

It involves starting fermentation of the wort (fermentable liquid rich in malted barley’s sugars) in one vessel, followed by “dropping” this liquid under gravity into a second vessel below it, usually on the second day of fermentation. Here it continues its fermentation for two or three days. The beer is then slowly cooled over the next couple of days, during which time it matures and gains complexity.

As breweries were modernised, or taken over and closed, the Double Drop method quietly went out of fashion, almost disappearing by the end of the century.

The system has two main beneficial effects:

• Purifying of the partially fermented beer, by leaving behind protein deposits and spent yeasts, which can cause ‘off’ flavours in the final beer.
• Aeration of the wort causing a surge in yeast growth, which develops the special delicate butterscotch flavours for which Brakspear Bitter is acclaimed.

Whilst modern technology can imitate both these effects, the Double Drop system does it naturally by the use of gravity. Also, as the vessels are fixed, the effect is entirely consistent from brew to brew.

Brakspear’s at Henley was one of the last established traditional brewers in the UK to use this Double Drop method for production of its regular brews. Six of the original Brakspear Double Drop vessels, and the two primary fermenters have been installed in their own dedicated fermenting room within the Wychwood brewery in Witney, and there, Brakspear beers are being Double Dropped once again.

visit www.brakspear-beers.co.uk

For orders call brewery sales direct on 01993 890 890

For further details and digital photography please contact Katherine Robbins at katherine@randr.co.uk or on 020 7384 1333 at R&R Teamwork