Nene Valley Brewery

Recently I managed to align my diary with a Nene Valley Brewery tour and it was worth the wait!  This has to be one of the most exciting craft breweries I have seen so far. The tour included a personalise talk by the owner, who is also the head brewer, and took in tasting of the raw materials, intermediary and final products, a delightful rub and sniff of the hops, and a good look at the equipment. We were given a reasonably thorough description of the brewing process and a good explanation about what goes into making quality beer and the role that final product packaging and presentation (kegs, vs casks, vs bottles) has on quality.  

In one of my previous posts I said that some of the secrets of modern beer making lie in the internals of the vessels and I got to see some of the juicy details on this tour. I learnt about new things like a hops accelerator (hop-back), a variable speed pump for wort removal, and a direct gas-fired boiler for the hops boiling. I also loved the fact that NVB are using solar PV to heat their water during the day in preparation for the Mash Tun. Their brewing kits is designed in Canada. I have visited several breweries in different parts of the world and there is a common theme with Canadian technology - there must be something significant here that I don't know yet.

NVB from Flickr by The Quaffer

My first impression of the building was 'Wow! What an impressive site'. The site is an integrated-type-warehouse with a Brewery on one side and general purpose retail space around the rest of the edges. There is a fantastic bakery shop and a bike shop.  It's a shrewd piece of commercial engineering and a bit of a coup in terms of planning permission.  Planning permission is usually always very sticky and difficult to manage in the UK, however, this example makes me realise that planning is a local 'thing' after all. If people like what you are trying to do and it is rejuvenating an area that is desperate for some investment, then surprising things are possible (if you've got the cash, of course).  There is also a beautiful water-side restaurant called the the Tap and Kitchen where the brewery beers are on tap.

The tour gave a highly personal insight into the beer making business and reveal a passion for quality.
We tasted the grains and rubbed and smelt the hops.  The highlight was the rare Mosaic that blew me away.  It's a special cultivated hop originally designated HBC 369CV and now trademark protected as Mosaic. There's an insightful link to the flavour profile and aromatic content analysis here. Here's another link discussing hop back vs knockout hops.

In the centre of the picture below is the 'hop accelerator'. I've heard others calling it a 'hop-back'. Here's a link describing the function of a hop-back and the use thereof in home brewing.
The beers benefitting from Mosaic hops are 'Big Bang Theory' and 'Release the Chimps', with the former being one of my favourite beers in the UK by far.

NVB produces a wide range of very good beers and these can be bought in the shop at the entrance to the brewery.

Available on tap

The product range is good and the branding is crisp and professional. An important insight learnt during the tour is that having large brewing vessels doesn't mean anything unless you have a lot of cellar space and even then you risk product quality degrading before it reaches the consumer.  The trick it seems is to balance the batch volumes so as to meet the rate of demand. Some important logistical insight.

My general impression is that this is a brewery that is going places - watch this space!