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Report from the City of Sails - The Asia Pacific Convention returns to Auckland
By: Roger Putman
01/05/2008
What do first-time visitors expect of New Zealand? Snow capped mountains, deep fjords, bubbling mud pools, small flightless birds with long beaks, lots of sheep and a slower pace of life perhaps. Well I can safely say that you do not get any of that in Auckland where sailing and bungy jumping from any tall building seem to be the national obsessions – along with rugby of course. If you cannot find a tall building, they are happy to project you straight off the ground!
IBD Membership Required
Home of the world’s strongest beer - A visit to Boston Beer’s original brewery
By: Roger Putman
01/05/2008
Boston is said to be the most European of America’s cities. It is the cradle of the revolution against the redcoats and there are many agreeable pastimes for its many tourists. The popular duck tours around town and afloat on the Charles River attract thousands, with one of a fleet of reconditioned WWII DUKW landing craft setting off every 15 minutes. Bizarre drivers whip the crew into a frenzy of quacking and then have trouble quietening them down again while passing through snooty ‘duck free’ neighbourhoods. All great fun and not to be missed.
IBD Membership Required
Getting started in Bridgnorth
By: Roger Putman
01/05/2008
I was quietly cursing the efficiency of Burton taxi firms outside the Town Hall after the recent IBD dinner when an earnest young diner thrust a business card into my hand, “I’m a new member” he said and with a slam of his taxi door I was alone again. I had been wondering how you chose to make a visit between over 600 UK microbreweries so cheeky Andrew Brough gets the benefit (perhaps) of the Putman pen!
IBD Membership Required
52 years brewing on the Bridge
By: Bruce Wilkinson
01/05/2008
In 1981 the brewers in Burton on Trent were Bass, Allied, Marstons and Everards. What odds would have been offered then that the brewery sites of Bass and Allied would have combined and then been sold first to a Belgian and then a US brewer? That Marstons would have been sold to W&D, that Everards site would be a housing estate and the Fox and Goose pub on Bridge would be brewing the second largest volume of cask beer in town? It is interesting to think of what Burton might be like in another 25 years time!
IBD Membership Required
Towards container deposits
01/05/2008
Around 8 million casks and kegs are owned and used by brewers and cider makers in the UK. Managing this population and keeping track of it has become increasingly complex and costly over recent years. Where previously brewers used to maintain control of their own containers, filling them, distributing them and collecting the empties, there is now a much larger and more intricate supply chain within the ontrade.
IBD Membership Required
Fermentus Interruptus® - Wort transportation to an estate of brew restaurants
01/05/2008
Granite City Food & Brewery opened its first outlet in 1999 and currently operates 25 restaurants in 12 states in the Midwestern United States. The company is building a chain of profitable restaurants based on the qualities of made-from-scratch food at attractive prices, excellent service and proprietary craft-brewed beer.
IBD Membership Required
Have lab – will travel
By: Steve Griffin
01/05/2008
Steve Griffin got his first job in a brewery in 1962, manually cleaning open, square fermenters using a blindingly effective mixture of pumice and tartaric acid. Since leaving Carlsberg Tetley at Leeds in 1994, he has been a brewer providing troubleshooting, project management, product development and quality improvement for large and small brewing clients across the world.
IBD Membership Required
Paradox, physics and punk
By: Frank Robson
01/05/2008
In an unlikely location next to a tyre service depot on the Kessock Industrial Estate in Fraserburgh you will find a new microbrewery with some quick successes under its belt and ambitious plans for expansion. This venture is the brainchild of two very young entrepreneurs.
IBD Membership Required
A quality future - Britain’s smaller brewers in good heart
By: Roger Putman
01/05/2008
SIBA held its AGM and annual Trade Day in Yorkshire again this year. This time the venue was the Royal York Hotel and the IBD took a stand there to explain its examinations and membership benefits. No one doubts the enthusiasm of SIBA’s 432 members but its Technical Committee do see a need to move to being highly qualified as well as highly skilled. The Institute is also working with SIBA to update the technical guidelines as a basis for auditing operations.
IBD Membership Required
United Breweries in Mumbai
By: Simon Jackson
01/05/2008
During the Drinktec conference and exhibition held in Mumbai last year, I was fortunate to be invited to visit the United Breweries facility in Mumbai. My visit was hosted by the Head Brewer, Mr S L Mittal and Asst Vice President Mr S Dalmia.
IBD Membership Required
Oak aged, anyone? A look at the US brewpub scene
By: Roger Putman
01/05/2008
During my trip to Nashville last autumn I found myself in a couple of brewpubs courtesy of my larger-brewery hosts. First there was the Cambridge Brewing Co in leafy academia across the Charles River from Boston and Cally’s in Harrisonburg in rural Virginia.
IBD Membership Required
A wherry successful micro - Woodforde’s Brewery in Norfolk
By: Ian Hornsey
01/05/2008
Have you heard the one about the bank manager and the schoolmaster? No, not that one, the one that is still being played out in the depths of Norfolk after over a quarter of a century. The story starts in 1981 when two enthusiastic members of the Norwich Homebrewers’ Society got together and founded what was to become East Anglia’s most successful micro-brewery.
IBD Membership Required
Bavaria to Bristol - Brewing at a Zerodegrees brew restaurant
By: Roger Putman
01/05/2008
One of the problems of making arrangements to visit brewers well in advance is that when you get there the brewer wishes you weren’t! Poor old Martin Maier at Bristol’s Zerodegrees brewpub and restaurant had his boiler in pieces, one of his two chillers was also kaput so he was sharing duties for collection and FV attemperation (0°C) with the maturation vessels (2°C), several of his sightglass bulbs had blown and someone had walked off with his microscope.