As Sunday dawned I realised two things. Firstly it was the last day of the simply wonderful weekend. Secondly, I had no way to get all the beer and paraphernalia home that had been given to me. I got up and went to the main street a few minutes walk from my hotel. I walked in to one of those souvenir shops that seem never to close and got a good sized hard shell suitcase for £79. I was in need of a new suitcase anyway so it was not just an expensive way to get beer home.
I then packed everything up and decided to spread the beer over my two suitcases figuring I would just pay for the extra suitcase at the airport.
I then lugged each suitcase down 5 flights of narrow creaky and dangerous stairs. This had to be done one at a time and took quite some time. Yes I was staying in the worst hotel in London I think. Apart from the stairs and lack of lift issue, there was one shared toilet/shower in the whole building, though there was another single toilet as well. If I had not pre-paid I would have left and gone elsewhere. It is probably fine for backpackers who want their own room rather than a hostel.
Anyway I checked out and left my luggage behind rather than carting it all the way to Chiswick.
The Fullers brewery is in Chiswick. It is a bit of a walk from the tube station but following the directions on the Fullers website is pretty easy. I had no Internet access any more so I had to text my wife and have her text them to me.
We arrived to a cosy cellar with an open bar available to us. There was also lots to look at while we were waiting for everyone to arrive. I arrived bang on time which is unusual for an Irish man but we had plenty of people to wait for before the tour.
The tour was brilliant. We were slit in to groups and I like to think we had the best tour guide because ours had been working at the brewery all his life. I forget his name which is unfortunate. The image above shows the original mash tun with false bottom. It is no longer in use but he remembers it.
Now this is what I call a hot liquor tank. The image does not do it justice but needless to say if I fell from the top I would not survive.
Our guide still recalls what it was like working with dray horses and when the brewery was wet as opposed to dry now. If you don't know what that means then read on as it is very important. A wet brewery is one where you are allowed, maybe even encouraged to drink on the job. Our guide recalled people drinking 15 pints during the working day. They would not be drunk as such because a lot of the alcohol sweat out of them it was such hot and physically demanding work. They used to get tokens that could be exchanged for beer.
A little more brewery porn, this time the top of the conical fermenting vessles of which there is more than 30.
My phone, which had not been charged all weekend was almost dead so I switched it off to conserve battery. I got no more pictures of the tour. I had stupidly packed my camera in a suitcase and left it at the hotel.
The bottling and cask lines were pretty cool. It was not operational being a Sunday so we did not get to see it in action but at the same time we got to walk where no tour ever goes because it was safe to do so. It would have been great to see their £1m robot working though.
After the tour we went back to the cellar bar and enjoyed some wonderful food and beers as well as a talk about beer and ingredients by Derek Prentice (brewery manager).
I will talk about the beer itself another time as again, Fullers gave me beer to bring home so I had some re-packing to do.
In the end I had 28 bottles of beer to get home to Ireland. It turns out though that BMI will not let you check in more than 1 bag, even though you are willing to pay for it so I re-packed yet again at the airport and put all the beer in my new suitcase. It was fairly heavy so I was expecting a hefty weight charge but to my surprise they did not even flinch and I had nothing extra to pay. It looked like the weight was 32kg which is quite heavy especially for a short hop from London to Dublin. Fair play BMI as Ryanair would have eh... buggered me.
Out of the 28 bottles I got 26 home intact. I also lost my Camden Town glass but that's fine, I have plenty of glasses. My Bombardier and St Martin were the ones that lay down their lives for the greater good and are sorely missed. At least Bombardier is available here so not a great loss but I can't say the same for St Martin.
So finally I want to thank all those who put the event together at Zephyr Adventures along with Mark Dredge at Pencil and Spoon for helping them with the organisation. Of course Fullers deserves a round of applause (and got one on the day).
I also want to thank all of the sponsors:
Molson Coors (UK)
Wells and Youngs
Fuller Smith & Turner
Pilsner Urquell
Beer Academy
Society of Independent Brewers
British Beer & Pub Association
Budweiser Budvar
Adnams Southwold
Shepherd Neame
Brains Brewery
Badger Ales
A very special thank you goes to the largest sponsor, Molson Coors who paid for the conference facilities and provided some wonderful meals and beer from their smaller UK breweries.
The only problem with the conference is simply, how the hell are they going to top it next year??? I can't wait to find out. Here is hoping for Burton on Trent which is a brewing Mecca.
I then packed everything up and decided to spread the beer over my two suitcases figuring I would just pay for the extra suitcase at the airport.
I then lugged each suitcase down 5 flights of narrow creaky and dangerous stairs. This had to be done one at a time and took quite some time. Yes I was staying in the worst hotel in London I think. Apart from the stairs and lack of lift issue, there was one shared toilet/shower in the whole building, though there was another single toilet as well. If I had not pre-paid I would have left and gone elsewhere. It is probably fine for backpackers who want their own room rather than a hostel.
Anyway I checked out and left my luggage behind rather than carting it all the way to Chiswick.
The Fullers brewery is in Chiswick. It is a bit of a walk from the tube station but following the directions on the Fullers website is pretty easy. I had no Internet access any more so I had to text my wife and have her text them to me.
We arrived to a cosy cellar with an open bar available to us. There was also lots to look at while we were waiting for everyone to arrive. I arrived bang on time which is unusual for an Irish man but we had plenty of people to wait for before the tour.
The tour was brilliant. We were slit in to groups and I like to think we had the best tour guide because ours had been working at the brewery all his life. I forget his name which is unfortunate. The image above shows the original mash tun with false bottom. It is no longer in use but he remembers it.
Now this is what I call a hot liquor tank. The image does not do it justice but needless to say if I fell from the top I would not survive.
The kettle (copper) is nice and shiny
Also nice and shiny is the mash tun they use these days.
Our guide still recalls what it was like working with dray horses and when the brewery was wet as opposed to dry now. If you don't know what that means then read on as it is very important. A wet brewery is one where you are allowed, maybe even encouraged to drink on the job. Our guide recalled people drinking 15 pints during the working day. They would not be drunk as such because a lot of the alcohol sweat out of them it was such hot and physically demanding work. They used to get tokens that could be exchanged for beer.
A little more brewery porn, this time the top of the conical fermenting vessles of which there is more than 30.
My phone, which had not been charged all weekend was almost dead so I switched it off to conserve battery. I got no more pictures of the tour. I had stupidly packed my camera in a suitcase and left it at the hotel.
The bottling and cask lines were pretty cool. It was not operational being a Sunday so we did not get to see it in action but at the same time we got to walk where no tour ever goes because it was safe to do so. It would have been great to see their £1m robot working though.
After the tour we went back to the cellar bar and enjoyed some wonderful food and beers as well as a talk about beer and ingredients by Derek Prentice (brewery manager).
I will talk about the beer itself another time as again, Fullers gave me beer to bring home so I had some re-packing to do.
In the end I had 28 bottles of beer to get home to Ireland. It turns out though that BMI will not let you check in more than 1 bag, even though you are willing to pay for it so I re-packed yet again at the airport and put all the beer in my new suitcase. It was fairly heavy so I was expecting a hefty weight charge but to my surprise they did not even flinch and I had nothing extra to pay. It looked like the weight was 32kg which is quite heavy especially for a short hop from London to Dublin. Fair play BMI as Ryanair would have eh... buggered me.
Out of the 28 bottles I got 26 home intact. I also lost my Camden Town glass but that's fine, I have plenty of glasses. My Bombardier and St Martin were the ones that lay down their lives for the greater good and are sorely missed. At least Bombardier is available here so not a great loss but I can't say the same for St Martin.
So finally I want to thank all those who put the event together at Zephyr Adventures along with Mark Dredge at Pencil and Spoon for helping them with the organisation. Of course Fullers deserves a round of applause (and got one on the day).
I also want to thank all of the sponsors:
Molson Coors (UK)
Wells and Youngs
Fuller Smith & Turner
Pilsner Urquell
Beer Academy
Society of Independent Brewers
British Beer & Pub Association
Budweiser Budvar
Adnams Southwold
Shepherd Neame
Brains Brewery
Badger Ales
A very special thank you goes to the largest sponsor, Molson Coors who paid for the conference facilities and provided some wonderful meals and beer from their smaller UK breweries.
The only problem with the conference is simply, how the hell are they going to top it next year??? I can't wait to find out. Here is hoping for Burton on Trent which is a brewing Mecca.
28 bottles in one case?! That's crazy! I've managed 14 beers in one case but that included a few cans. And only two breakages is excellent going!
ReplyDeleteFor beer lovers that tour can really mean a lot because it allows a closer look on how beer is processed. The pictures look really great and though, your phone did not capture everything,the images you posted can easily speak a lot about the experience that you had.
ReplyDelete