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