EMMA DUNN meets a young brewer continuing a long tradition

CREATING the perfect pint is a family tradition for the Arkells.

The brewery uses the same buildings in Stratton that barley farmer, John Arkell, built shortly after he started brewing beer in 1843.

Head brewer, Alex Arkell, who is the son of chairman James Arkell, is the first family member to brew the beer since John died in 1881.

“I love it, it’s a great job. So many of my friends have got jobs they don’t enjoy,” said the 28-year-old, who became head brewer in 2012.

“I look forward to Monday mornings because I get to go to the brewery and see what the beers from last week taste like. Creating something and seeing what people think of it is a very rewarding job.

“What I also love is the fact you have a relationship with the weather and farming. I love being conscious of how the harvest is going and going to see the farmers.

“It is exciting to be making something that comes out of the ground. It does change year on year because of the conditions, but it’s my job to make sure it tastes the same even though the materials have changed.”

The beer is made using John’s old-fashioned techniques, including some processes which are completed by hand.

The first stage of the process sees the cereal grains, including barley, being crushed in a mill, which was installed in 1908.

“You won’t see a system like this in any other brewery,” said Alex.

“We love it. Tradition is very important to us. We could scrap all of this and get a little stainless steel mill with a switch button. For us, making beer is about more than efficiency though, this method is the way Arkell’s has always been made.”

The ingredients are then taken through the mashing and boiling process, and the hops are also added before it is fermented.

“There is no rule to how you add your ingredients in brewing but every difference you make will change the flavour. The secret is when you add your hops and how much you add. It completely changes the flavours,” said Alex.

“When you go to brewing school you are learning how to make consistent beer. If it could taste different every time it would be really easy. Actually making beer is quite simple, people do it in their own homes. The process itself is simple but the art of it is making the product taste the same and being consistent.”

Fermentation takes place in old open square fermenting vessels before it is kept in the cellar for a week and then bottled and kegged.

The final part of the fermentation process is left to the landlords.

“We send it off half finished and rely on our landlords to nurture it and make sure it sits for the right amount of time. Our landlords are very good and know what they are doing. They love their beer,” said Alex.

At 170 years old, Arkell’s Brewery is one of less than 30 family breweries left in the UK.

The brewery was established as an offshoot to the family farm when Isambard Kingdom Brunel was building his locomotive and carriage works for the Great Western Railway.

Beer from Arkell’s helped quench the thirst of the workers in the hot, humid environment of the railway works.

While Swindon’s historic railway works finally closed down in the 1980s, Arkell’s Brewery is still going strong, fulfilling the demands of today’s workers across the south of England.

Five members of the Arkell’s family still work at the brewery every day, alongside generations of local families, brewing real ale and looking after the more than 100 pubs the brewery owns across Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Hampshire.

Arkell’s full-bodied real ales include Wiltshire Gold, 3Bs, 2Bs, Kingsdown and Bees Organic Ale.

Arkell’s also brews 1843, a special Czech-style lager. Specials include Noel Ale and Moonlight. Moonlight was brewed in secret in 2004, to commemorate Peter Arkell’s 80th birthday and his missions as an RAF pilot flying low level sorties in 1943 picking up agents in central occupied France during the full moon period, and later in Burma.

“Beer has always been in my family. As little boys we came to the pub and to the brewery. The whole family has always had a passion for Arkells and for beer,” said Alex.

“With us having been here a long time we have seen how trends have changed. About 40 or 50 years ago people wanted one or two beers. The original 3B recipes, which is our biggest selling beer, was first produced in 1910. For the best part of the century we just had 2Bs and 3Bs.

“Now it is about lots of small varieties and different flavours, which is good for me as a brewer because it means I get to experiment.

“Every month this year we brought out a new beer. I always want to expand the portfolio because people love choice and variety, which is quite a new thing for beer.

“We still sells double as much of 3Bs as we do of anything else. It’s our flagship beer.”

Alex, who has completed a master of brewing course in Munich, formerly ran the Rusty Bicycle in Cowley when he was 23.

“That’s what got me into beer. I thought I wanted to do something in the industry and spent a couple of years in the pub selling our beer. I loved tasting the beer and looking after it,” he said.