ALE Autumn 2000 No. 299

Four go mad in Norfolk - part 3

Wolf admires the capacity of Shaun's tankard...

... so much that he tries to steal it

Night was spent a short stroll away at the Griffin Inn, home of more Wolf beer, more exquisite food, welcoming locals and comfortable sleeping accommodation. But again the fates had a cruel twist up thir collective sleeve - by early morning it was clear that both Steve Linley (ALE Editor) and I were trapped in a small room, unable to coerce or cajole the door into opening, or contact anyone who might be able to apply force from the outside. It was only through the sin of using a mobile phone within a public house that assistance was eventually forthcoming (when Shaun had finally stopped laughing).

The Sunday was more civilised, the first tour taking place at 10.30 at Woodforde's brewery. It's much larger than any other, and there is a great interest in hygiene, so we donned white coats for the tour, before (inevitably) sampling the Norfolk Nog.

Our next port of call had totally forgotten we were coming. Even so, the Bull brewpub in Blanchfield came up trumps. With no sign of the brewer, the barman confessed to having no idea of the brewing process, but showed us into the brewery and left us to work it out for ourselves - by this stage a trivial task. Quite a contrast to Woodforde's, particularly in terms of size! We noted some malt extract lying around, but turned a blind eye because the Bull Mild was enjoyable enough.

Iceni were, at least, expecting us. At the beginning of our trip we had run into Brendan Moore at the City of Cambridge brewery and reminded him we would be showing up. Iceni has been adventurous in the local microbrewery market, leading the way in bottling beers (which it also does for other breweries, and which was demonstrated to us), as well as venturing into lager production. Coerced into sampling their wares, more alcohol was consumed, although our driver was refreshed by a bottle of Draper and Moore apple juice.

Our last port of call was back in Cambridge (nearly), at the newest brewery of our tour: Milton. Tony and Richard, along with their beers, are now familiar faces in Cambridge pubs; even so, purely in the interest of science of course, we felt it necessary to try them again. There was little pretence at providing us with a tour (although attempts were made to get us to help empty the mash tun). We eventually only left after the `large and distinguished collection of hammers' was shown to us.

The weekend had been a success. We would like to think it was both educational and informative, although truth be told the quality of beer was a winning factor. Hopefully the tour will be repeated soon with a larger complement of local branch members, maybe also visiting Buffy's and the Humpty Dumpty brewery, which we had to missed this time due to a shortage of time. Many thanks to the breweries and brewers who put up with us, and we hope to be spending more time with you soon!

Ben Chalmers