Keyword Search:

AAB Departments
  ...Beer Features
  ...Beer Talk
  ...Pull Up A Stool!
  ...What's Brewing
  ...Beer Travelers
  ...Stylistically Speaking
  ...Beer & Food
  ...Homebrewing
  ...Collectibles
  ...Marketplace
Beer Lovers' Resources
  ...World Beer Festival
  ...Brew Cruise Info
  ...AAB Merchandise
  ...AAB Bookstore
  ...Beer Links
About the Magazine
  ...Subscription Info
  ...Retail the Magazine
  ...Advertising Info
  ...Contact AAB

FEATURES


The Britain's New Independents

Ensuring Choice for Beer Drinkers

by Roger Protz

Portland Brewing Picture

This black sheep of the family is
no outcast among beer lovers.

Paul Theakston's wife told him he would be
"the black sheep of the family"
if he went into business against his former company.

Introduction • The Haunt of Kings • Ringwood Prospers
• Brews of the Norfork Broads
• God’s Own Country • Small and Uncompromising

 

God’s Own Country

If you head north from Norfolk and cross a large inlet of the North Sea called The Wash you reach the largest region of England, the four counties of Yorkshire. The region includes the part-medieval city of York with its magnificent cathedral, the more down-to-earth and homely city of Leeds, and vast tracts of mountain and moorland. The Yorkshire folk are gritty, phlegmatic and sometimes a trifle dour. They play a version of rugby that is a cross between American football and organized thuggery, and are united by a passionate belief that they live in "God's Own Country" and brew the best beer in the world. Among the beers are those from a brewery that seems to have stepped straight from a TV soap.

Paul Theakston was a director of a family-owned brewery of that name in the rugged, stone-built market town of Masham. Theakston’s brews a good mild and a pale, tart bitter but is best known for its Old Peculier old ale. When Theakston’s was bought by Anglo-Scottish brewing giant Scottish & Newcastle, Paul Theakston quit, hibernated for a while, and then burst back on to the brewing scene in 1992 with his Black Sheep Brewery. It is based in a spacious former maltings divided from Theakston’s by an old stone wall.

Masham is sheep-rearing country, the surrounding hillsides dotted by black-faced sheep and lambs. The name for the brewery came from Paul Theakston's wife, Sue, who told him he would be "the black sheep of the family" if he went into business against his former company. Theakston’s may have inwardly fumed but could do nothing to stop the rapid rush to success of Black Sheep. Paul Theakston planned his brewery with a meticulous eye for detail. It was never a micro and now, brewing more than 50,000 barrels a year, it is a substantial regional company.

Black Sheep Bitter (3.8 percent) is the mainstay of the business, with a no-nonsense and intense hop bitterness from Fuggles, Goldings and Progress varieties, balanced by delicious creamy malt. Maris Otter is the preferred variety with crystal for colour and roundness, plus a touch of roasted malt. The bitter has been joined by a 4.4 percent Special Bitter with a delectable nutty crystal malt character and ripe orange fruit, and the strong, 5.9 percent Riggwelter, bursting with pear drop fruit, ripe malt and tart hops. The name is a dialect word for a sheep that has fallen on its back.

Black Sheep has splendid copper mash tuns and kettles, but the focus and defining area of the brewery is the fermenting hall with its two-story Yorkshire Square vessels. Paul Theakston was convinced he could brew genuine Yorkshire beers only if he used a fermenting system invented in the region. A Yorkshire Square, originally made of slate but more usually built of stainless steel today, was developed to cope with the slow "flocculating" nature of local yeast strains.

A Yorkshire yeast is reluctant to turn malt sugars into alcohol. The cells clump together and have to be roused on a regular basis. This is achieved by starting fermentation in the lower chamber of the vessel, where yeast and wort rise into the top chamber through a central port hole. A raised rim holds the yeast back while the fermenting wort returns via pipes into the bottom story. When fermentation is complete, the port hole is closed and the green, or unfinished, beer is left to condition in the bottom chamber for a week or two. Yorkshire beers are noticeably full bodied and rounded as a result of some unfermented sugars that remain after fermentation. This malty sweetness is balanced by generous levels of hop bitterness.

Black Sheep's beers are sold in pubs nationwide and are also on sale in bottles in major stores and supermarkets. The brewery has become a shrine: brewhouse visits take place several times a day, with the brewing process explained by an in-house video program. There is a brewery shop and visitors can eat well in a splendid bistro designed and run by Sue Theakston.

Ringwood, Woodforde's and Black Sheep are not alone in achieving growth and success at a time of general downturn in British brewing. Edinburgh's Caledonian Brewery and Archer's in the old railroad town of Swindon in the far west of England are also substantial brewing companies.

back to the top

This story originally appeared in All About Beer Magazine in July 1999.


© 1996-2007 Chautauqua Inc.