About Us

The methods and raw materials used to brew traditional British beers have remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years. For this reason The Grainstore Brewery uses only the finest quality materials to brew its beers, with the majority being sourced from within the UK. A closely guarded combination of malted barley, brewing sugars, hops, yeast and water, all go to create a truly unique, well-balanced selection of traditional ales which build in strength and flavour through the range, with a moreishness that is a characteristic of Grainstore beers.

The Grainstore Brewery uses malt made from ‘Maris Otter’ barley which is supplied ready milled by the Maltster. In the brewery, ‘liquor’, the brewers term for water, is boiled and treated prior to being ‘mashed’ with the crushed malt ‘grist’.

After an initial standing time of one hour, more hot liquor is ‘sparged’ over the mash and the sweet, sugary ‘wort’ produced is run off from beneath the mash tuns’ false bottom, a set of slotted plates, into the ‘copper’.

Nothing is wasted as even the spent grains left in the mash tun go to a local farm to be fed to Dexter cattle and Old-spot pigs!

Once the copper is full, the wort is boiled for and hour, with a blend of English ‘whole’ hops. These hops not only give the beer its uniquely refreshing bitter flavour and hoppy aroma but also have a mild preservative effect.

After another hour, the wort is ‘cast’ into the ‘hopback’ over a second addition of especially fine hops. These hops, notably Fuggle and Golding varieties are used to enhance the distinctive hoppy aroma.

The wort is rested in the hopback for twenty minutes and passed through a plate heat exchanger, and is cooled with incoming mains water. The resultant hot water is recovered and used for the next brew.

The cooled wort is run into one of the cleaned and sanitised fermentation vessels ready to be ‘pitched’ with our own selected strain of yeast.

Fermentation, which is controlled at 21 degrees Celsius, takes three days, during which the yeast converts most of the sugars in the wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas.

Once the desired specific gravity has been reached, the brew is chilled down and matured at 10 degrees Celsius for four days before being racked directly into 11 gallon casks.

As the beer is a ‘live beer’ i.e. still contains a certain amount of yeast, a small quantity of ‘finings’ are added to each cask prior to delivery to the publican. On reaching the pub cellar, the finings speed the settling of the yeast, which together with a secondary fermentation in the cask gives the sparkling clarity and condition expected of Grainstore Beers.