A visit to Adnams Brewery

Southwold is situated in coastal Suffolk, not the easiest place to reach by public transport but there are regular daytime buses from Lowestoft or a more infrequent service from Norwich. The first mention of brewing on this site is 1396 but the Adnams family did not become involved until 1872, later joined by the Loftus family in 1902, both families still have members on the board of directors.

The brewery is situated behind the Swan Hotel

The visitor centre from the back of the Swan                                          

The Swan inn sign

Inside the visitor centre, packed with old brewery memorabilia 

The brewery itself is best viewed from the rear of the complex

From the outside, Adnams Brewery looks like a typical Victorian Tower Brewery, however, a new brewing kit was installed in 2006 and in 2010 a distillery was installed. Adnam's are one of the few all grain spirit makers, most other gin makers buy in the spirit and rectify it into a the finished product, Adnam's however are distilling spirits from the grain to the glass.  

Above: The Copper House Distillery

Above: Jack on the brewery wall, who has given his name to the "Jack Brand" of Adnams beers

Mash Tun above and hop chargers below, the wort is redirected through these chargers filled with hop pellets, there are three of them so that different hops can be added at varying times throughout the boil.

The fermenting block is actually across the road from the brewhouse

Above and below: the gleaming stainless steel fermenters

Below: the brewer is ageing something special in these casks I think?

The beers are packaged elsewhere, at the award-winning distribution centre just outside of Southwold

The tasting room

A good range of beers were offered in the tasting room, the first one was a non-alcoholic version of Ghost Ship, something the tour guide pointed out that a recent CAMRA tour had refused to drink, although they enjoyed the keg beers later!

Above: Adnam's Store & cafe, worth popping into to stock up on their range of beers, spirits and their famous barley wine, Tally Ho.

 The pubs in Southwold are worth visiting as well, above: the Sole Bay Inn, below, the Lord Nelson

 Above: the Crown and below the Red Lion

Below: the bar of the Swan

Sadly, the  King's Head is no longer a pub but the bus stop is still named after the pub! A bit confusing if you are looking for the pub or the bus!

Another enjoyable afternoon spent sampling beers and discovering new pubs!

Pub closures in Newport & Cardiff

Earlier this year, the Office of National Statistics published "Economies of Ale", changes in the UK pubs and bars sector 2001-2019. What was noticeable about this report was the claim that small pubs and bars have bounced back after 15 years of decline, albeit by 0.4%. This is no doubt to the micropub revolution, however the trend is still downward

Smoking ban introduced in England 2007 so the steady drop happened after that.
Also on this report you can type in your postcode for a look at your local area, Cardiff and Newport areas are below as examples:

A visit to Tennent's Brewery

Tennent's Wellpark Brewery stands on an historic site, just to the East of the City, below the hill of the Glasgow Necropolis. Tennent Caledonian is owned by C & C Group plc, the makers of Magners Cider. Brewing has taken place here since at least 1556 under Robert Tennent, making it Glasgow's oldest business. Founded as H & R Tennent in 1740, the business expanded in the 1790s when a neighbouring brewery was bought and the 5-acre site was renamed the Wellpark Brewery. By the mid-nineteenth century, Tennent's were the world's largest beer exporter. Tennent's Lager was first brewed in 1885.

The company was bought by Charrington in 1963 and merged with their other Scottish interets to form Tennent Caledonian Breweries, later it became part of the Bass Charrington Group, sold to Interbrew (later Inbev) in 2000 and in 2009 C & C Group purchased it. What is unusual for a brewery of this size is that they run brewery tours and popular ones at that, so it is worth booking in advance if you want to see a brewery of this size.

It's also worth walking around the outside of the brewery as the walls and hoardings are taken up with the history of the site.

What would otherwise be a non-descript brick wall is given over to local artists to commemorate Tennent's advertising of the past.

Onto the brewery tour, which starts in the Heritage Centre and features a museum of Tennent's memorabilia and a collection of their television adverts. Not having lived in Scotland I did find these adverts quite fascinating. Luckily the brewery have also uploaded their television commercials to You Tube,

The Heritage Centre also features a selection of cans produced from the late 1950s to 1991 known as the Lager Lovelies 

Hardly pc nowadays!

Inside the brewery complex, the oldest building on this site is this which is today houses the laboratories.

Not part of the brewing process as such, these tanks are bio-digesting the waste yeast, providing power for the brewery.

 The mash tun above and the filters below:

 The "T" is everywhere!

Unfortunately, no photography was allowed on the canning line so it was back to the bar for a tasting and a surprise!

Tennent's produce a unpasteurised lager! This beer is available in a only a few selected outlets.

Unlike everyone else on the tour, I had never sampled Tennent's lager before and it wasn't that bad, not too sweet and quite enjoyable. I admit I only drank the unpasteurised version.

An extra to the tour is a further sampling of some of the other beers Tennent's produces, although their infamous Sweetheart Stout was not available on my visit, infamous as it's only 2% and brewed only once a year, it was the only stout available when I was in the Highlands some decades ago and was such a shock to the system I started drinking single malts instead!

Some of the other Tennent's beers

There is also another brewery adjoining the site, this is the Drygate Brewery, a joint venture between Tennent's owners C & C and Williams Brothers Brewing. This is supposedly the oldest part of the site where brewing started in the 1500s.

All in all, an enjoyable afternoon discovering breweries (the morning was taken up visiting the Glasgow Police Museum, well worth the visit if in the area)