Britain's First Ever Brewers' Market

26 July, Snape Maltings, Suffolk

Applying the idea of a Farmers' Market to beers, Britain’s first Brewer's Market will bring together 12 of East Anglia's best microbrewers at Snape Maltings, near Aldeburgh on Sunday 26 July. The event revives Snape’s long connection with brewing over 30 years after the site ceased malting barley for beer.

The Brewers’ Market will feature twelve microbreweries each selling their bottled beer to take home as well as to enjoy there and then. There’ll be the opportunity to meet the brewers themselves, and to discuss with them what makes their beer special. Sustenance will be provided by Snape’s resident Metfield Bakery who will serve sausages and freshly baked pizzas.

For anyone who wants to learn more about different beer styles and how to match beer with food, the day will be made all the more special by tutored beer tastings led by beer guru, Mark Dorber of Beer Academy and proprietor of The Anchor at Walberswick.Snape Brewer's Market runs from 12 - 6pm on Sunday, July 26th
Snape Maltings, near Aldeburgh, Suffolk, IP17 1SR
http://www.snapemaltings.co.uk/

Entry to the market is free. There is plenty of free parking available at Snape Maltings.

Tutored tastings with Mark Dorber will run at 12.00 and 3.00. Tickets cost £5 and should be booked in advance. Call Snape Maltings 01728 688303

Breweries will include:

• Elmtree Beers, Snetterton, Norfolk


• Iceni, Thetford, Norfolk


• Tipples, Acle, Norfolk


• Humpty Dumpty, Reedham, Norfolk


• Grain, Harleston, Norfolk


• Bartram's Brewery, Rougham, Suffolk


• Opa Hay Brewery, Beccles, Suffolk


• Cliff Quay Brewery, Ipswich, Suffolk


• St Peters, Suffolk


• Real Ale Shop, Suffolk

Real Food Festival - Suffolk producers where were you?

I made a rare trip to London at the weekend to visit the Real Food Festival at Earls Court. I love going back to London. It was home for over 10 years and I miss it more than I admit!

Bizarrely almost the first person I saw outside Earls Court was someone I'm more likely to see at Suffolk farmers' markets, Ian Whitehead from the Suffolk Salami Company. We're fans of their sausages and bacon (branded as Lane Farm) but I was pleased to try their chorizo which was delicious and my first purchase of the day.

Suffolk Salami was one of the few Suffolk food producers represented at the Festival, others were Munchy Seeds, Casa del Oli (olive oil) and Stark Naked Foods (pestos made with herbs grown on the family's 150 year old farm) and the big boys, Aspalls. I was disappointed not to see a stronger representation of Suffolk food and drink producers there and, with the exception of Aspalls, there was nothing there that was unique to Suffolk. Where were our micro-brewers, cheese-makers, beef or pork farmers?

Other regions were represented by their Regional Food Groups and clustered together - Wales had a very strong presence. Rumour has it that Tastes of Anglia, our own Food Group, didn't get the funding they needed to be there; but with stands costing as little as £200 each, I think that's a poor result. My friends at Grain Brewery sold so much beer they had to drive back to the Norfolk to get more to sell on the Sunday. Watch this space - next year Food Safari will be there and I'll bring as many of my friendly producers with me as I can to show the rest of the country what great foodie things are coming out of Suffolk.

In the meantime for a true taste of what Suffolk has to offer come to the fourth Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival on September 26-27, 2009. I'm going to be organising the programme of fringe events with producers, farm shops, delis, pubs and restaurants running September 26-October 4th.

Brew day at Grain Brewery: report

I arranged for Tim to visit Grain's microbrewery in Alburgh on the Norfolk/Suffolk border for a day learning how to brew beer. Well it was his birthday and thankfully he did bring a few bottles back and also agreed to blog his experience!

"I managed to get lost on the way to Alburgh but what a beautiful place! On the North side of the Waveney valley which runs along the Suffolk/Norfolk border this is unexpectedly rolling English countryside. When Phil Halls and Geoff Wright were looking for a home for their new brewery in 2006 they saw and rejected lots of potential sites including a range of different farm buildings and (thankfully) characterless premises on industrial estates at a much higher cost. When they found their current site at South Farm they knew it was right for what they wanted to do.
What I learned between 9.30 and 4.00 is that the life of a craft brewer is physically demanding, full of sensory (particularly olfactory) stimulation and occasionally repetitive.

All brewers develop their own unique recipes. Today we were brewing Grain's session bitter Oak and throughout the process we referred to a sheet listing the precise weights of ingredients.
The first part of the brewing process is to combine hot water (called liquor in brewing terminology - it just sounds better doesn't it?) with malted barley which comes in big sacks.
This lets the heat release the natural sugars in the barley (which will later be turned to alcohol by yeast) in a big open barrel called a mash tun. The clever bit at this stage as we learned at Beer Academy is combining different types of malted barley: pale, crystal, chocolate in different proportions to create beers of very different flavours and colours. Oak majors on pale malt - Maris Otter to be precise.




The sweetest cup or two of the resulting 'wort' is discarded and then the rest is transferred to a copper tank where it is boiled with hops. Two types of hops are added in two stages: first bittering hops which add bitterness; and then at end of an hour or so aroma hops which 'spice' the brew adding a wonderful, heady aroma. These aroma hops are an expensive ingredient (by weight) but really contribute character and zing to a beer like Oak.

While the 'boil' takes place we get our hands and boots dirty shovelling the spent barley out of the mash tun (see below) - it's oddly satisfying and we just finish in time for Jimmy the farmer to come and pick up the sacks of waste barley husks to feed to his sheep. How about that for thrift and sustainability?



The brew is then transferred into a fermentation tank where it will, with the addition of yeast the following day, begin to become beer as we know it with the malt sugar converted to alcohol. The beer we brewed will be ready in a few short weeks and Phil is going to give us a call when it's ready!"

We really like Grain's beers and are impressed with the way Phil and Geoff are working to bring their beer to new audiences : check out their classic session bitter Oak which has some lovely aromatic hops on the nose, the Ruby Porter which is full, sweet and creamy with that 'Ovaltine' flavour from crystal malt and the Strong Pale Ale which has quite a serious drink with a kick.