Every day’s a school day here at Jacaranda, especially when we dispatch our man in the know to discover other wonderful local businesses. This time, JJ took his knowledge of Top Tipples to check out a fantastic brewery on our doorstep…
At Jacaranda we do enjoy a beer in our local watering holes and I always wanted to learn how beer is made. I was recently lucky enough to spend a day in the Langham Brewery and assist the chief brewer Saulo Parreira.
Based in an 18th century granary barn in the picturesque village of Lodsworth on the Cowdray estate, Langham Brewery nestles in the beautiful South Downs National Park between the historic market towns of Midhurst and Petworth.
Established in 2005, Langham Brewery was founded by James Berrow and Steve Mansley, assisted by Lesley Foulkes in the back office. Steve has since retired and James unleashed his creative side in 2013 to produce two new award-winning beers, while Lesley stepped in formally to become sales and admin partner.
What sets Langham real ales apart is that they only use the finest ingredients. Leaf hops not pellet and centrifuges; floor malted barley from one of only 3 floor maltsters left in UK. They also have a strong eco ethos – spent malt feeds a local cattle herd and fermenter waste is collected by the Cowdray estate to mix with slurry and fertilise the fields.
Before my visit to Langham, I didn’t realise how much hard work is behind beer making and after my experience I will certainly never look at a pint of beer the same way – respect to all the brewers!
Saulo highlighted from the very start that 80% of the brewing process is actually cleaning and sterilising. However, he did let me get involved in mashing malted barley, lautering, sanitising the wort by boiling it and extracting the flavours and aroma by adding the hops in to “Cathy” the copper. Finally, after the wort had cooled down and been transferred in to “Fiona” the fermenter, the yeast was added or as the pros say “pitched”.
During my day at Langham Brewery we managed to brew over 2000 pints of their award-winning Hip Hop. Unfortunately I have to wait three weeks till I can taste the final product!
If you’d like to know more about Langham Brewery, pop over to their website where you can even book your own brewery tour and sample this fantastic process for yourself. If you’ve got an appetite for real ales, why not use Langham Brewery’s award-winning beer as wedding favours for your guests? We bet they’ll have no idea just how much work went into creating them!
