I remember buying Bracia from the brewery. Drinking it at the brewery.

I remember my first taste; the overwhelming sensation of a honeyed nuttiness that I'd never known before.

I remember buying cases of it from the farmers' shop in Bakewell.

I remember giving bottles to people, so eager to try the beer, so pleased to finally experience it.

I remember drinking it with pasta, with beef stew, with ice cream, with friends.

I remember my first bottle.

I remember finding battered boxes wrapped in gaffer tape, bottles I didn't know I still had.

I remember when I thought I was drinking my last bottle.


Tonight, I am.


The last of that first batch. A beer borne of Stefano Cossi's insight and Thornbridge's nous.

I try to shy away from hyperbole, but... it's been a privilege to drink a unique beer that is world-class.  

All I can do now is remember. But, hellfire, what a memory it is. >

Yes, I know it's almost the first day of spring. I enjoyed a bottle or three of Thornbridge's finest over the festive break but never quite got around to writing about it. Too busy drinking the stuff, you see. So, time to dig out the old notes and then crack open another bottle to see if the rapture still holds fast...

You know how you never forget your first time? My first taste of Bracia was at the brewery in November 2008, the impossible smoothness of the beer being as impressive as the brewers' enthusiasm for it. Kelly Ryan gave me a bottle to take away which I intended to have over Christmas, but it seemed too good to drink so soon. Fortunatley, they were able to slap labels onto a production batch in time and so I was able to pick up a dozen bottles direct from the brewery.

This beer is a Thornbridge labour of love steeped in history. Its inspiration lies in an alterstone inscription found at another Derbyshire country house, Haddon Hall; Bracia possibly referring to a honey-sweetened high-alcohol beverage drank by the occupying Romans. That connection inspired Italian head brewer, Stefano Cossi, to develop a rich beer infused with chestnut honey sourced from the foothills of north-east Italy.

Into the glass, Bracia bursts forth with molasses and creamy coffee. An initially sticky beige head came unglued into a frogspawn of stubborn bubbles above a burnished brown body. And onto the nose, in waves, came honey like no other. Not sickly sweet, not funky fresh comb, just wafts of that chestnutty tang.

A first sip revealed softer sensations, the chestnut flavoutr carried sharper on the underpeel feel of a waning oraange, all tempered by easy honey rewarming on the palate. Fifteen minutes later - yes, I can actually leave a beer this long - rewards are reaped as the crema topping is capable of being whipped up again and flavours of damp honeycomb and milky chocolate come through. Like a Crunchie dipped in cold coffee, the beer left some lovely cream on the lips with a prickle of sweetness at the end and enveloping nuttiness on the way down.

After half and hour, flavours even out to a coffe-laced sorbet with honeycomb flakes, a soft and frothy praline ebb and an assured sweetness that melts away in the mouth.

So far, so orgasmic. It would have been plain rude of me not to sample some alongside chocolate, so I dug out some single origin Amedei samplers that I treated myself to for my birthday. The Venezuelan had a superb freshly sweet aroma with notable clear honey traces that complemented the Bracia well. The Ecuadorian offered pronounced powdery cocoa, accentuating the nuttiness of the beer.

What an epic beer. There was virtuoso honey, subtleties of nuts and coffee revelling in a fantasia of flavours. It had taken me an hour to enjoy the bottle; the next one was polished off within thirty minutes but by then I knew the tune. Bracia offered a bittersweet symphony; I look forward to the same notes (albeit not neccessarily in the same order) when I try another bottle in a few months time. >

Is brewing an art? A science? Alchemy? What's it like to get up close and personal to one of your favourite beers at each stage of the production process?

When Thornbridge asked me if I wanted to spend a day with them I jumped at the chance to see if it would help answer those questions. And so begins a tale of how a couple of Englishmen, an Italian and a ceaselessly-bounding Kiwi blend art and science to produce some of the finest beers that England has to offer.



A misty morning saw me hack my way to Bakewell on the TransPeak and hope for a connection that could deposit me vaguely near a lane end towards Thornbridge Hall. So there must be some sixth sense amongst brewery staff; whilst waiting at the bus stop, who should pull up but Rob Brock from their sales team. A lift secured, Ron was soon regaling me with tales of beers recently sampled and, er, inflatable pubs that fit on a trike-trailer (these things are seriously cool).

Drawing up to the impressive hall, we stopped off briefly in the office where three things struck me. The huge amount of beer-related books stacked on desks and heaped onto a metal trolley; allsorts of catalogues, hefty scientific tomes and countless volumes about a myriad of beer styles and recipes. The walls which were covered in framed 'beer of the festival' awards. And then there was the stack of even more awards waiting to be hung in the little space that's left... The room bristled with the the fount of their knowledge and the rewards of their labours.

Then it was off to the brewhouse to meet the team. Head brewer Stefano Cossi was flitting around with a hundred and one things to do. Though, every time I saw him on a laptop he did look like he'd rather be brewing. Matthew Clarke was busy shifting casks, Dave Pickering had his head in a mash tun and Kelly Ryan was... well, he was bounding around with unabated enthusiasm. And he never, ever stopped bounding!

Kelly was soon explaining eagerly about the beer that Dave was brewing today, a batch of one of my all-time favourites - Jaipur IPA. The mashing had been underway for an hour or so and Kelly insisted that I try some of the sweet malt. This became a defining theme of the day, tasting and smelling the ingredients at every step gives you a truely visceral understanding of brewing. For instance, tasting the sweet hot wort brought home just how welcome hops are in a beer.

And, what hops they were. Always itching to try something different, Thornbridge were adding Nelson Sauvin into the boil today. They were the first English brewers to use this hop (in their Pacific pale ale, Kipling) and now they were hoping to create a bitterness not too far removed from Jaipur's familiar bite. The aroma as Dave measured out the hops was sublime, with fresh citric fruits bursting out the bag.

Everything to do with the process is recorded meticulously - times taken for boils and run-offs, the precise quantities and varieties of ingredients used. After all, what's the point of experimenting and coming up with a great new way of brewing an old favourite if you don't know how to replicate it? Tables are consulted; calculators and laptops are brandished.

But even this seemed low-tech compared to what Kelly then introduced me to. Thornbridge are possibly the only microbrewer in the country to have their own microbiology laboratory. All through the day, Kelly (a microbiology graduate) worked away on numerous projects whilst patiently explaining the biochemical processes to a man who failed A level Biology too many years ago. Now, I'd hoped for a few tasters along the way and expected to be roped into some grunt work in return. But I honestly didn't think I'd get the chance to analyse yeast activity using a hemacytometer under a microscope. Perhaps though it's just what I should have expected - Thornbridge's passion for brewing is driven as much by getting the exacting science right as it is by the artistry of combining flavours, aromas and textures.

Yet it's not all pipettes and test tubes. There's no substitute for a keen palate and a clean nose. As with trying the proto-Jaipur earlier, Kelly insisted on sampling other beers as they reached critical stages of the brewing process. A batch of Ashford still conditioning was tasted and proved to be shaping up well. The cold hopped wort of the Jaipur proved to be a more challenging taster...

With today's Jaipur off to the fermenters, that left the not-so-little job of cleaning up after us. Dave said the brewer's job was 'ninety per cent cleaning and ten per cent brewing' and his wife couldn't understand 'why I can't be this clean at home!'. The mash tun needed emptying of the spent malt before being steam cleaned, so Dave hopped inside with a shovel and... I got to hold a sack open for him to shovel the malt into. For an office-based softie like me it was actually hot and back-stretching work, a fierce heat still wafting off the malt as it was bagged and dragged outside. Newest recruit Matthew Clark was slinging the sacks into the back of a 4x4 - the malt was being recycled as cattle field at a local farm.

Time for a breather. The crisp autumnal afternoon was perfect for photography and one raised bed nearby caught my eye. Kelly explained later that this was their own herb garden where they had been growing the likes of rosemary, sage, rosehips, lemon balm... typical of their experimentation, here were the fresh ingredients that could be used to create the spearmint-tang of alecost or the citrus cut of lemongrass.

With Dave delving inside the copper tun now, I had a chat with Matthew after he and Kelly had cleaned out the returned casks (see, there really is more cleaning to do than you can imagine). Matt originally applied to be the delivery driver, started off instead as the cask cleaner and has now become one of the brewers. He's even taking night school classes in chemistry to gain a fuller understanding of the science side of the operation. He told me that since starting here he'd learned to do 'sample' beer rather than 'drink' it - sip and taste as opposed to knocking it back.

So, just to show that it's not all work, work, work, there were indeed beers to be sampled. Kelly really was like a proud father; long stemmed tulip glasses proffered up with the latest nascent brew. A possibly-Christmas beer, Eureka, had a superb smooth candy sugar edge. Hop Juice, a matured version of the Halcyon IPA, had benefited from having thirty pounds of freshly picked Target hops crammed into it. But the head-and-shoulders standout had to be Bracia, a chestnut honey beer that was impossibly smooth and sweet-nutty, cream-sweety.... ah, for once words fail me. Every mouthful was savoured, every glance into the emptied glass was one of longing and envy.

All too soon, it was time to go. But not before Kelly had thrust bottles and a mini-keg at me (watch out for a few extra-special Bottled Up articles before Christmas). On the ride back to Bakewell, Rob was regaling again with tales of riding a Harley Davidson around the US in search of cask beer. It occured to me then that all the Thornbridge guys share that love for beer - whether it's brewing it, selling it or drinking it.

Brewing at Thornbridge is an art. The guys have the feel for a recipe that leads to a beer that can excite the eye as well as the tastebuds. They know what makes good beer good - and how they can subtly change things to make good beer greater.

Brewing at Thornbridge is a science. The guys are well qualified and take pride in their understanding and control of the processes responsible for turning raw materials into alcohol.

Brewing at Thornbridge is a business. The guys know there's no point in making beer for the sake of it; their beers sell well because they are products offering sustained quality in enough quantity in styles that appeal to the modern drinker.

Brewing at Thornbridge is a labour of love. The guys have levels of energy and enthusiasm that appear to be boundless. You get the feeling that someone has to shove them out and lock the gates at the end of the day or else they'd never leave.

Yes... brewing at Thornbridge is.... all about passion. Crafting a combination of flavours, controlling the quality of the process, consistently delivering marketable products. And loving it, loving it, loving it.


Thanks to everyone at Thornbridge for your hospitality and infectious enthusiasm.

Some more photos can be fund on my Flickr site
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