Friday, January 22, 2010

FIRST SAMPLING OF BRIGG BITTER

Update today from Phil Ellis, Fulstow Brewery
Brewing Sergeants beer is something I've always been interested in doing but lacked any information, but after we recreated Hewitts I got to know a man who actually lives just round the corner from the brewery who was assistant brewer at Hewitts from 1952 till it shut.
After a conversation with him he went in his loft to get some old Hewitts brew logs out to give me some more Hewitts recipes as we only had one and amongst these was one Sergeants brew log.It gave the information of the grain and hops used but not in their respective ratios.
I did not know what colour the beer was or how bitter it was but talking to people who can remember drinking the beer have said it was amber in colour and slightly sweet which was enough information to recreate the beer so here we go.
It was brewed on 20/1/10 and will be racked into casks on 26/1/10.The beer has nearly finished fermenting as I write this and I've just had a sneaky taste. It seems to be OK.
NF adds: We all can't wait to taste it, Phil! I think Hewitts (Grimsby firm) took over Sergeants in the late 1960s. Then they became part of a bigger chain.
KEEP WATCHING BRIGG BLOG FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS FASCINATING STORY.

2 comments:

Ken Harrison said...

Any idea what PORTER is?
....one doesn't get Friar Tuck asking for a jug of bitter!
Could it be that PORTER pre-dates refined sugar - and honey was used in the brewing process?

We could even have a unique Brigg Porter, or BP High Octane, for short.

Is anyone old enough to have drunk porter? How about you, Nige?

Phil Ellis said...

Porter beer is a beer which started in victorian London.Porter is a reddish dark beer with a pronounced coffee flavour which comes from a particular malt which was used.Victorian porters were on average 8 to 10 % abv thou not this high these days but a true porter at 10% abv is a flavour to behold.
Cheers
Phil Ellis