About the Nethergate Brewery

                                          
The Nethergate logo, featuring our famous British Bulldog, Old Growler.               

The brewery site, in converted barns at Street Farm, Pentlow. The barley in the foreground is the malting variety Maris Otter.

 Filling casks. Each cask holds 9 gallons, and is known as a firkin. This is the standard pub size.

The Brewery was established in 1986, in the small town of Clare, in Suffolk. From the very beginning it set out to brew distinctive beers of a consistent quality, this being quickly recognised in the many awards won at beer festivals throughout the region. Click here for a summary of these awards. 
The beers brewed mostly exhibited special features, such as our coriander flavoured Umbel ales, (coriander was much used before hops became cheaply available), or Old Growler itself, a dark porter which is our most famous beer.

Over a period of time we built up a range of eight so-called permanent beers, these being beers that are brewed throughout the year, as opposed to seasonal beers, which are brewed from time to time, and cover a very much larger range. By clicking here you can see our brewer's notes on the permanent beers, and by clicking here some of the pump clips used on seasonal beers.

The Brewing Process

Brewing is one of the oldest industries in the country, and as one would expect of such a traditional industry, the principles of creating beer has changed very little as the centuries have passed. Today brewing has crystallized into a number of distinct steps:

The Grist

For each individually brewed ale different types and varieties of malted barley are used, in different proportions, to make up the recipe. Roasted barley, chocolate and black malts are used in the darker beers, while amber, crystal and malted wheat is used in the lighter ones. Examples are shown on the barrel below.


                  


The lion’s share of any grist is the malted barley, from  where most of the sugars come; the variety we use is Maris Otter, grown in the fields next to the brewery here in Pentlow, as in the picture above.

Grist to the Mill

Once the malts have been carefully weighed and counted they are then loaded into the mill, where they are cracked. They are then stored in the grist case awaiting the next days brewing. The expression "it's all grist to the mill" drives from this operation.

The Run off

Hot sweet wort then runs off, by gravity, into the under-back, where it is then pumped up and into the copper.

     

The Copper  

Once the correct volume of wort is received in the copper the bittering hops are added, the wort is then gently brought to the boil and allowed to simmer for up to an hour and half. Before the end of the boil the aroma hops are added. There are many varieties of bittering and aroma hops and each brew, just as it will have its own malt recipe, will have a special hop recipe.

Casting

Once the wort has been allowed to settle it is then cooled, and after cooling pumped into a fermentation vessel. The yeast is then added to the wort, and after a few hours God's gift, as it was known before the advent of microscopes, starts to do it’s magical work.

Fermentation

                     

                     

Depending on what’s brewing the fermentation lasts for about two to three days, yeast is then skimmed for the next brew and when the correct strength is reached the beer is then cooled for a further four days before being racked in casks.  

Yeast is a living organism which converts sugar into alcohol. It forms on top of the brew, being skimmed off before racking          

A small amount of sugar is left un-fermented at this stage to allow the beer to secondary ferment in the cask. Hence the name "cask conditioned beer".

 Racking & Storage


Beer is then racked, (which means being transferred to the casks in which it is sold to pubs), at which point  isinglass finings are added to clarify the beer.		 The casks of beer are then stored for seven to ten days in the refrigerated beer store before being distributed to the trade. This allows the beer to condition and mature.  

Monitoring Quality

                          

 

Each brew is continuously monitored throughout its maturation. Samples are examined in the laboratory  at regular interval

 Second brewer Paul inspects his raw material Cleanliness is next to Godliness in a brewery!

The Result

All this work is to provide pleasure for the discerning drinker of traditional ales. We hope you are one of them!

Visitors to the brewery enjoy a glass or two of Nethergate                                                      

You can drink Nethergate anywhere

 Head brewer Tom
Last, but hopefully not least, Andy Bone, the maker of this website, with a pint of Suffolk County.  Andy is also MD.