The coach picked up at Gt. Dunmow at 09:00 and then collected the main part of the group at Saffron Walden at 09:30 and the on to the Sugar Loaves at Sible Hedingham for 10:15, so far exactly on time!
On, then, to the brewery which is located at a mediaeval fortified farmhouse at St. Peter's Elham not far from Bungay in Suffolk. The brewery, by it's own admission, is not much interested in the cask conditioned market (so why go there you may ask), but what it does do is brew beers in the traditional manner and then bottle them (not bottle conditioned I'm afraid). They are aiming very much at the supermarket and overseas trade and with their very distinctive bottle, based on an 18th century brewery bottle, they are apparently succeeding in these markets.
The moated farmhouse is set in the middle of the flat north Suffolk countryside and is extremely picturesque
, the brewery itself is in the various outbuildings and is essentially arranged around a central courtyard so that the process of brewing flows in one direction from grist to mash tun to fermenter. The water for the brew comes from the property's own well which has been there for 700 years and sinks over three hundred feet through chalk to provide a very hard water suitable for brewing bitter. East Anglian barley comes from traditional floor maltings and Challenger and Goldings hops from Kent complete the recipe. The tour was conducted by Don who had been in the brewing trade for 30 or more years and was also responsible for tours at the Adnams brewery. The tour ends in the visitors centre where many of the eighteen beers can be sampled, all were from the bottle which was a slight disappointment, but the range was such that almost every taste could be accommodated.After the tour it was across to the hall for lunch, this part of the hall is actually constructed from parts of an Abbey some 3 miles away that was dismantled in the 16th century. The food is of restaurant quality and the portions could not be faulted (in fact the chicken liver starter looked like a main course to me).
Two draught beers were available in the restaurant and I think that most people agreed with Don that the Best Bitter was better in the bottle than on draught where it seemed to be overly 'malty'. With a gale force 8 lazy wind (it goes through you as it can't be bothered to go around) we did not linger to sightsee but instead headed off to find a snug hostelry to stock up on some less 'fancy' beer. Our first attempt failed because for some reason we couldn't find the White Horse at Thelnetham, this, it transpired, was because we were using a road atlas some nine years out of date and they'd built a by-pass! We stopped in Bury St. Edmunds at the Queen's Head, the beer guide's description of it as 'a lively pub' fails to do the noise levels justice but the beers were good. With less than 35 minutes 'til we were due back on the coach, a small contingent decided to head off to the Old Cannon, at least 10 minutes each way giving, in Ralph's words, 'enough time for a couple'.
Although
they seemed to have had rather a tiring effect. The stalwarts voted it 'the best beer of the trip', so a definite must on
the next trip I make to Bury.In short, although St.Peter's does not do much in what may be regarded as CAMRA's stock in trade, it does brew in the traditional way using good ingredients and then packages it in a distinctive way for sale to people who might not otherwise try 'real' ale.