Boom time for micro-brewers

Wherever you are in Norfolk, you are not far from a microbrewery - but things were very different ten years ago. SARAH BREALEY looks at how we became a county of real ale lovers.

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On a quiet lane in the Waveney valley, in an old cattle-shed, magic is happening. In mash tuns, coppers and fermenting vessels, malted barley, water and hops are becoming beer. The warm, sweetish smell of malt hangs in the air.

In here sugar is coaxed out of malted barley, the mixture is boiled with bitter hops, and yeast is added to perform the wizardry of making alcohol.

Few other kinds of manufacturing attract such enthusiasm and excitement. Visitors come to watch and learn about the process, and might even weigh the ingredients or shovel the spent malt.

The Grain Brewery in Alburgh, near Harleston, has a setting more rustic than many, but the same thing is happening in towns, villages and industrial estates across Norfolk.

There are 29 Norfolk breweries, all small enough to be called microbreweries. The largest and oldest, Woodforde's, opened in 1981 at the start of a surge of interest in cask ale. The next wave did not come until the 1990s. But around half of Norfolk's breweries have opened in the past five years - Grain, Norfolk Square in Yarmouth, Elmtree in Snetterton, Tipples in Acle, the Fat Cat brewery in Norwich, Engel Fine Ales in Aldeby, Ole Slewfoot in Hainford and many more.

Norfolk probably has more microbreweries than any other county, and has overtaken Cumbria, which used to hold the title.

The Norwich and Norfolk branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has the second highest membership in the country with 1,860 members.

For Geoff Wright and Phil Halls, who run Grain, the popularity of ale in Norfolk starts with the ingredients - but after that the relationship between breweries and its drinkers gets a little fuzzy.

Geoff, 37, from Scole, near Diss, says: “The best malting barley in the world is grown in East Anglia. It is also the structure of the pub industry. There are more free houses than many other places, so there are more places to get the beer.

“Real ale celebrates everything that is best about ruralness and Norfolk is a rural place, one of the last rural places we have got left.”

Phil, 40, from Norwich, says: “I am not sure which came first, the drinkers encouraged the microbreweries, or the microbreweries encouraged the drinkers. It is a bit self-perpetuating - there is more ale, so more people drink it, and that encourages more ingredients to be grown. It all comes down to the raw ingredients.”

Graham Freeman, chairman of Norwich and Norfolk CAMRA, agrees that the local ingredients are important to breweries - and pubs are important to getting it sold. “I think with it being a rural county with many villages, the local community support the village pub. If real ale is served in the pub you get new drinkers.

“A lot of microbreweries use local hops and malt. They get a local taste. I think that is why it is popular. Around this area a lot of people have been interested in homebrew. Sometimes they have been made redundant from work and they have money to invest, they decide to set up their own brewery. It is quite an interesting venture for them.”

CAMRA's national annual meeting is likely to be held in Norwich in 2012, because organisers are keen to sample the Norfolk beer scene.

Phil admits that running your own brewery “is quite a romantic idea”. “If you like beer it is a wonderful thing to be involved in the brewing of beer. Friends seem to pop up from all over the place if you have a brewery.

“You go back to basics, it is very hands-on. You are on a farm, using the ingredients from the land. You get to meet a lot of nice people. I love getting great feedback about the beer. There is a lot of interest in it, and a great chance to win awards, which is great recognition for what you do.”

Geoff and Phil started Grain Brewery just over three years ago. Geoff had worked in marketing for Adnams and previously Greene King, and was passionate about beer. He says he loved working for Adnams. “I was quite happy, climbing the corporate ladder, wearing a shirt and tie every day, and then I was made redundant. It gave me a real jolt. I thought, I can't rely on other people to look after me, I want to work for myself.”

Phil had a desk job, working for the Stationery Office in Norwich. They had been friends since they were teenagers, and decided to set up a business together.

Since then the business has taken off. They currently make 4,400 pints a week, mostly their three regular beers Oak bitter, Best bitter and Harvest Moon. The names suggest a timeless, rural quality, which sits well with the wood-effect pump clips and the brewery's rural setting. In August the Tamarind IPA won national recognition, securing a bronze award in the strong bitter category at the Great British Beer Festival. Another Norfolk brew, Little Sharpie from Reedham's Humpty Dumpty brewery, won bronze in the bitter category.

The recession is not having a noticeable effect on Grain. The beers are regulars at several Norwich pubs, including the King's Head on Magdalen Street, the Arts Centre, Take Five and the Gatehouse.

They are particularly passionate about cask beer, and therefore about pubs. Only around 20pc of their sales is in bottles - drinking it from a cask, they say, is the best way to enjoy it. Geoff says: “That is the advantage pubs have over supermarkets, they are the only place you can get cask beer. We are not about getting drunk, encouraging people to drink a lot of beer, we are about going to the pub with your friends and enjoying the beer.”

For Geoff, real ale's special quality is its quintessential Englishness. He says: “It is unique to the UK. It is not only the fact that real ale has real depth of flavour, you get real depth of hoppiness, it is also symbolically English and Norfolk, the reasons why we like being in East Anglia.”

Their next plan is for a pub of their own, selling their beers in Norwich. Graham hopes that CAMRA can encourage lager drinkers, especially the younger generation, to try real ale with a fuller flavour. “We do try to convert lager drinkers, they can try a golden beer and they might like it. It is an educational process. We hope we can help them.”