Pilgrim Brewery

The brewery was designed by David Bruce of Firkin pubchain fame. In fact it is just a larger version of the the pub breweries' equipment. It has however been improved and augmented over the 27 years we have been using it. It's major advantage is simplicity but the downside to that is that it is very labour intensive; still that keeps us fit! Modern equipment is easier to use (some is even computerised allowing a reasonable beer to be produced with no skill at all!) but with that often comes inflexibility. As we have proved we can brew top quality beers from English bitters through mild, stout and porter to wheatbeers: as long as it is warm fermented we can do it!

We whenever possible invest to improve the brewhouse and this year we have installed a new cask washing machine and air-conditioning in the fermenting room to provide a steady ambient temperature: this enables us to control fermentation temperatures more accurately

It takes between 7 and 8 hours to produce the base hopped wort which is passed to the fermenting room where the yeast is pitched at the end of the brewing day. The fermenting room is temperature controlled to run at an even 16.C throughout the year. The yeast takes three days to ferment the wort into "green" beer. Two days cooling and the new beer is ready to be casked. We then add finings and leave the beer to mature or cask condition as it is often called for 2-3 weeks. Then to the pub and after the finings have cleared the beer it is ready to be poured gently and drunk pleasurably!