A guided tour around Batham's Brewery, Brierley Hill, with Alice and Claire Batham.

Express & Star

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Claire and this is my sister Alice and we are sixth generation of the family of Batham's

00:06brewing business.

00:08Let's show you around.

00:10So Alice and Claire Batham, we're in the mill room at

00:14the brewery.

00:16Just explain what goes on in here and where, you know, exactly what this fantastic machine is here.

00:22So, this is our mill.

00:24All of our malt comes in from Crisp Maltings and we load it in the hopper upstairs.

00:29Comes down

00:31through this chute and we reload it into these bags here.

00:35Right. Because we have a Victorian Tower Brewery, these have to go all the way to the top of the building.

00:40Got you.

00:41So yeah, all of the malt comes through this mill.

00:43Right.

00:45It just works great.

00:47I can't believe you still use this amazing machine.

00:49How old do you reckon it is roughly?

00:51About 90 years old we think.

00:5390 years old, goodness me.

00:55It's still going strong.

00:57And you say there's a guy who still services it.

00:59He's been servicing it for years and years.

01:01Ronnie is our

01:03Right.

01:05He does a lot of the sort of old mills across the breweries

01:07like Huck Norton and Harvey.

01:09Yeah, fantastic.

01:11So we're in our malt

01:13and hop store here at Batham's.

01:15All of the malt comes up here

01:17and then it's fed into the mill.

01:19Right. So we're above the mill that we

01:21just previously saw and then it all goes

01:23down into here. Fantastic.

01:25Okay, so

01:27where are we now? So this is the

01:29brew house. This is where we make the beer.

01:31This is the mashturn

01:33so where we mix the water with the

01:35grain and then create

01:37the sweet wort here in the copper

01:39where we add the hops and that's what

01:41adds the sweetness

01:43to the wort. So how long is this

01:45process? How long does this take? So this will take

01:47the whole day. Right. Create that

01:49sweet wort and then when we add the yeast

01:51to it, that'll ferment for about a week

01:53and then, yeah, it's ready

01:55for cooling and chilling.

01:57Great, so this is the

01:59hot bath room. So this is the next part of the

02:01process where we start to clarify the wort.

02:03It sits in here in the

02:05hop strainer bed and then it goes

02:07through the heat exchanger. That's

02:09when we cool it down and add the yeast

02:11and then it's up to the yeast then to...

02:13So it goes out of there and then comes

02:15down here until that cools

02:17itself. Through the heat exchanger, yeah. Right.

02:19Then we send it to the next bit which is

02:21the fermenter, add the yeast

02:23and then the yeast ferments it and makes

02:25the alcohol and all the yummy stuff.

02:27Fantastic.

02:29That's when it gets good. There you go.

02:31Okay, so we're in the fermenting

02:33room now, is that right? That's correct, yeah.

02:35Just explain what goes on in here

02:37then, Alison. So this is the part where

02:39we add the yeast to the wort

02:41and it sits in these fermenters

02:43for about a week. Right.

02:45And that's when the yeast is doing its job

02:47and creating the alcohol and all the other

02:49stuff that we love to drink. Yeah.

02:51We use

02:53these. They're really old. Not many

02:55breweries now have open fermenters

02:57but we think it creates the best

02:59cask beer. Absolutely. So how old

03:01are these? You know, how old are the original?

03:03The wood on them will be coming up to about 100 years

03:05old. Wow. But the

03:07linings were put in about the

03:0990s. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

03:11Fantastic. So how long...

03:13Is that whole process really from

03:15the very beginning to the... So when it's

03:17in a, you know, a pint glass or whatever.

03:19It's probably, it's quite fast here

03:21so it's fermenting for about a week

03:23from the brew day and then we

03:25package it into casks, goes

03:27out to the pub, sits in the cellar for

03:29a couple of days and then

03:31it is sold. Ready to go?

03:33Yeah, fantastic. So

03:35you can tell

03:37where the fermentation is at by looking

03:39at the yeast here that we have on these

03:41two vessels. So this one

03:43has got a bit of a fluffier top.

03:45Yeah. You can tell that it's only just started

03:47doing its fermentation.

03:49As we look at this one that was brewed

03:51a day earlier, the yeast has

03:53already started to... Oh yeah, there is

03:55a difference. So that's just after 24

03:57hours, is it? Yeah, yeah. So

03:59this one is reaching the end of its fermentation now

04:01and it's getting ready for us to take the

04:03yeast off and

04:05we reuse it as well. We reuse

04:07the yeast in next week's brew. Oh,

04:09that's good. Yeah. So nothing

04:11goes to waste? Nothing goes to waste.

04:13So this

04:15is the racking room. So once it's been

04:17packaged, we roll

04:19it and store the barrels in this room

04:21and then it sits in here until

04:23it's ready to go out to the pubs.

04:25So it goes straight from here onto the

04:27back of the lorries and then

04:29to the pubs. Fantastic.

04:31So here we are in the

04:33vine, also known as the Bullenbladder,

04:35which is attached to the brewery,

04:37with the end product. Cheers!

04:43Cheers!

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