Popped into Morrisons supermarket the other day and found a surprisingly wide range of beers, however, what caught my eye were these two cans from Tomos Watkin Brewery, now under its third owner, Drop Bear Beer Co, who specialise in non-alcoholic beers. Not having tried any of their beers since the new owners took over I looked forward to trying them both.
Unfortunately both were riddled with phenols, the Tallyman more so than the Dragons Keep IPA. This wasn't a mere lingering in the background taste but a full antiseptic phenolic flavour. Both went down the drain.
So what can cause phenolic flavours?
A bacterial or wild yeast infection is the more common cause but phenols can also be produced by high fermentation temperatures, stressing the yeast and producing phenols. Either way, it's a pity the brewery did not pick up on this fault during their quality control process, assuming they actually have one? The smell was noticeable on opening the can, even before pouring into a glass.
Here's a problem I have with Welsh beers, pick any 10 at random and there will be faults with at least 2 of the beers, not something I find with Belgian or German beers.
The city of Halle, birthplace of Handel, is somewhat overshadowed by it's larger neighbour, Leipzig but has plenty to offer from Germany's oldest chocolate maker to what is perhaps the smallest commercial brewery in Germany.
The IBIS Styles Hotel, conveniently situated by the main railway station features this magnificent mural of historic Halle in their car park.
Statue of George Frideric Handel in Halle City Centre
Halle Haupbahnhof or central station
Hidden away in a granite cobblestone street, next to a Deutsche Bahn marshaling yard and behind Saxony's largest brothel, in a former Deutsche Bahn kitchen canteen sits the Spund Brewery at Am Güterbahnhof 13, 06112
Spund Brewery is on the right, past the white building
The view from the brewery
So what is a Spund? It translates as a "bung" but can also mean an airlock as is shown on their logo
The brewery was founded in 2022 by Sebastian Duckstein and Philip Häusler and must rate as the smallest commercial brewery in Germany, with mashing and boiling the wort being done in 60 litre cooking pots as shown below:
Spund maybe small but in the 4 years they have been brewing, they have produced over 100 different types of beer, all bottled in .33 ltr bottles. Brewed with water from the Harz Mountains and malt from Bamberg and other maltings, Spund is not afraid to experiment with different yeast strains to brew their extensive beer range.
Filling the mash tun with grist for another brew
The range of beer styles brewed here also differ from your usual German brews, no standard pils, no usual helles, no normal dunkles, instead Seb and Philip have looked to the wider world for inspiration with black IPA, Bocks with pink peppercorns, Quads and even a brew with Norwegian Farmhouse yeast.
A black IPA
A bock brewed with pink peppercorns and liquorice, giving a slight aniseed flavour
Brass, their 5.5% golden ale, brewed with Nelson Sauvin and El Dorado hops
Wit, a ginger-dominated wheat beer
Another Cascadian/Black IPA
So where are these beers available from? Well only at the brewery which is open every Thursday 1630-1830! Occasionally Spund open at weekends, best check their Facebook site for that and then, once a year, the brewery is home to Spundfest a strong beer and strong music festival
In 2026, Spundfest is on Saturday 5th September and features 16 of their beers
Welsh brewers SA Brain have returned to the site their brewery operated in until 1999. The aptly named Old Brewery pub is situated in what was the brewery yard and what the author remembers as being the copper house and/or the boiler room of the old brewery?
Press release below: Based in the city’s historic Brewery Quarter and aptly named The Old Brewery, the venue is a collaboration between Brains Brewery, global brewing giant Heineken and Breaking Brands’ director Steve Lewis. The venue marks a return to the site where Brains Brewery was based on St Mary’s Street from 1882 until 1999, before the site was redeveloped into a leisure complex in the early 2000s. The Old Brewery brings sport to life beyond the pitch, with sports simulation bays covering rugby, football, cricket, golf, and more across more than 3,500 real-world venues, powered by smart-net and motion-tracking technology.Inspired by some of Cardiff’s greatest sporting moments, customers can test their kicking skills and attempt to land a match-winning penalty or all-important conversion, recreating the anticipation and exhilaration of match day. As well as this, The Old Brewery is home to Bayside Flavour Fusion, a first-of-its-kind triple-beer font which allows customers to enjoy three distinctive Bayside lagers – Original, Cherry and Grapefruit – from a single three-tap font. The Old Brewery champions the best of Wales, with Brains cask ales and beers, Welsh spirits, and a Welsh BBQ menu, all under one roof. Nick Payne, CEO of Brains, said: “The Old Brewery is a fantastic celebration of everything that makes Cardiff and Wales special, bringing together our proud brewing heritage with a fresh and exciting vision for the future. “It’s brilliant to see the doors open and people enjoying the space, and there’s something particularly special about being back home on the site where Brains brewed beer for more than a century. We can’t wait to welcome people through the doors and see The Old Brewery become part of the fabric of Cardiff once again.” He added: "It’s also great that The Old Brewery is home to the first Bayside triple-serve system of its kind. The new serving system represents the latest innovation from Bayside, combining our award-winning lager with a fresh approach to how it can be served and enjoyed. "We wanted to give lager lovers more choice and create something that would really bring Bayside to life in a new way. With Original, Cherry and Grapefruit all available from the same bar, customers can discover the different flavours and find their favourite.” Steve Lewis, Director at Breaking Brands Management, said: "Opening a venue like this is hard graft, and it takes a proper team to pull it off. The Old Brewery has been a labour of love, taking a site with this much history and giving it a reason to matter to Cardiff all over again." He added: "We wanted to build somewhere that felt like it belonged to the city, where you can feel the history in the walls but everything around you is built for now. “Whether that's watching the rugby with a pint in hand, having a go on the sports simulators with your mates, or just finding somewhere decent to eat after work, we wanted it to work for all of it. That balance was the whole challenge, and I think we've nailed it. “Seeing the doors open and the place full last night, that's the whole reason we do this. Big thanks to the whole team who's worked to get us here. This is just the start for us in this space.”
The Uplands Hotel, Swansea has expanded into a neighbouring building since this picture was taken in the 1950s when it was a pub owned by Evan Evans Bevan Vale of Neath Brewery. Now renamed the Uplands Tavern and owned by Greene King Brewery, the Tav, as its known as, has a connection to Dylan Thomas who drank there and in most other Swansea pubs.
The former Dulais Rock pub, Aberdulais, pictured in the 1950s when owned by Evan Evans Bevan Vale of Neath Brewery. The building apparently dates back to the 17th Century but closed in 2009, Wales Online has some interior photos from 2019 here
Owners after the Vale of Neath Brewery include Whitbread and Punch Taverns.
The former Farmers Arms, Glynneath Road, Resolven, Neath, marked as a "Beer House" on the 1888 Ordnance Survey Map, as opposed to a fully licensed "Public House". Was owned by Evan Evans Bevan Brewery of Neath who sold out to Whitbread in 1967 as the family preferred to live in the Channel Islands as tax exiles. The pub closed in 2019 and has since been converted to housing and is now called "Farmers Lodge". Also known as the Ynysbipan Arms, there was a campaign by locals to save the pub
Other former Evan Evans Bevan Vale of Neath Brewery pubs in Resolven were:
The New Inn, New Inn Place, now the Nisa shop, closed around 2004
The Gored Hotel/Gored Arms, Melincourt, demolished
The Vaughan Arms, the last pub in the village closed in 2020
At the time of visiting Berlin, there were 3 Brewdogs in the City: Mitte, Friedrichshain and the Dog Tap. Berlin has a wonderful public transport network with underground and overground trains as well as a well-developed tram and bus network. Day tickets can be purchased at stations or via the app
From Alexanderplatz, the heart of Berlin, take the U8 heading Northwards to Gesundbrunnen or any further northward stops, alight at U Rosenthaler Platz and, if you wish a small diversion on this trip, head eastwards to Mikkeller Berlin although it doesn't open until 1500hrs on weekends and 1700hrs weekdays. Alternatively head out of Rosenthaler Platz and carry on up Brunnenstrasse until the crossroads with Invalidenstrasse becomes visible, we need to turn left here and then second right into Ackerstasse and Brewdog Berlin Mitte is on the right.
It was whilst sat here I thought about visiting the other Brewdogs in Berlin, how difficult would it be? Well I knew the Dog Tap was out on a limb down South somewhere so with the help from Google and after a few jars in Mitte I headed outside and waited at Pappelplatz tram stop, in vain for a tram heading West, no luck after a quarter of an hour (they are supposed to run every 10 minutes on this line), so I walked the 7 or so minutes to Berlin Nordbahnhof on the S-Bahn
Here we need a southbound S2 service to Lichtenrade, alighting at Attilastrasse, trains run on average about every 10 ninutes. The journey is about 20 minutes on the S-Bahn. Exit Attlilastrasse to the east, cross the road and head south east on Ringstrasse, the journey walking takes about 20 minutes. Keep heading south-east, over the bridge (canal or river, not sure?). Turn right into the industrial estate for Rewe , you are now on Alt Gaswerk Mariendorf, keep straight on this road until you see the signposts for Dogtap on your right.
The former water tower? Part of the old gassworks where Dogtap Berlin is located
NB there appears to be an alternative footpath on the map that takes you to the front of Dogtap, parallel to the S0Bahn line, due to construction work at the time I could not locate this but it may appear on Google maps later.
Finally, we arrive at this:
Impressive isn't it? I've travelled across Berlin to visit a shed!
Well, not quite a shed, this is an iconic piece of industrial architecture which lay derelict until the American founder of Stone Brewing, Greg Koch decided he could turn this into a brewery and venue, This is all in the film, The Beer Jesus from Amerca,, available to watch on Amazon Prime
Unfortunately for Greg Koch, Stone pulled out of Europe, selling the site to Brewdog. Stone later sold to Sapporo for $165 million.
What you can only understand by visiting this place us the actual size of it, it's more like a beer hall such as the Hofbrauhaus in Munich than a Brewdog pub.
Unfortunately on my visit in September 2022, not everything was working, I was shown to a table and told to use the Brewdog app to order, no problem, Apart from the fact the table I was on didn't have any number on it! So I went to the bar to order and find my table number!
Then there were the delays with the beers I had ordered, I ordered a pizza with beer and the pizza arrived only to be followed by the beer 10 minutes later. I realise on that day Dogtap Berlin was receiving a visit from James Watt so they were busy lubricating their tongues rather than dealing with the needs of customers so I would put those problems down to teething troubles BUT a section of the bar reserved just for customers to be able to be served at when the app is playing up would be a bonus. Would I visit again, yes, but others may be put off by that experience. The venue was starting to fill up by early evening.
Onto the next one!
Come out of Dogtap and turn right, following the car park and exit, turn right again on Alt Gaswerk Mariendorf and follow this road until it joins the main road, Lankwitzer Strasse, there is a bus stop, Greinestr across the road and a short walk right. The 181 leaves here about every 10-15 minutes. Alight at Alt-Mariendorf for the U-bahn station of the same name, as this is a terminus station on the U-bahn every train heads north.
Take the U6 North until Unter den Linden change for the U5 for Kaulsdorf-Nord and alight at U Frankfurter Tor, find the correct exit out of the U-Bahn station and Brewdog Friedrichshain is on the South-East corner of the road junction. Mo photos as it was dark by now and the phone was out of battery and so was the emergency charger!
Friedrichshain is a wonderful suburb of Berlin, full of breweries, rather like Shoreditch in the East End of London, now that's a future blog entry........
A short walk northwards from the architectural monstrosity that is Brussels South/Midi/Zuid station, ignoring the pickpockets, beggars and other North African flotsam that infest the Anderlecht municipality of Brussels, one arrives at the historic Cantillon Brewery and museum which was undergoing an enlargement of the premise on my visit. Luckily it was open for self-guided tours for €8 per person with a booklet and tasting of 3 of their beers
Above and below: the mash tun
Up a floor to the grist mill
Below: the copper
Upstairs again to the coolship, wide flat-bottomed vessels to allow cooling of the wort
Barrels for primary fermentation
The bar at the end of the tour
Cantillon Iris, brewed entirely with Pale Malt (Lambics usually have a percentage of wheat malt, around 35%), aged for two years in barrels and dry-hopped with both fresh and aged Hallertau hops, then cold-hopped with Saaz
Lambics are not to everyone's taste but I enjoy them, far more sour than the kettle-sours of craft breweries. I could have stayed longer at Cantillon but my Deutsche-Bahn train was waiting to take me across the border into Germany
