I recently got involved in the creation of a special beer to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Grayston Unity in Halifax. Here's the story of the beer from its inception to a pint in the bar....
The idea for a special commemorative beer first cropped in conversation over the bar and a couple of pints at the Grayston Unity early on this year. "What do you think?", owner Michael Ainsworth asked me when he told me of his plan, one of several he had by way of celebration in honour of the bar's 10th anniversary later in the year. Sounds like a great idea, I said. And to cut a long story short, with me having bèen one of the long-standing customers, plus my interest in beer, aside from putting in the odd shift behind the bar at the old Grayston and sister bar Meandering Bear over the years, would I like to be involved in coming up with the beer? And of course, I said yes.
But first we needed someone to brew the beer. The house beer at the Grayston is the very popular 4.2% Chinook, a single hop blonde ale brewed by Goose Eye brewery in Crossflatts, near Bingley, and with them having played their own part in the Grayston story over the past 10 years it seemed only fitting that they should brew the anniversary beer, and when Michael contacted them to ask the question they were more than happy to help.
So who are Goose Eye and why the name? Well, the original Goose Eye Brewery originated in late 1970s in the small Pennine village of the same name which is situated in a narrow valley a couple of miles or so out of Keighley. It was started by a guy called Brian Eastell in an old building close to the village pub, the Turkey Inn, which became the main outlet for the fledgling brewery. These days it would be classed as a micro brewery, but back then, its small scale at a time when there were far fewer independent breweries around meant it was rather a novelty, and so the village became something of a place of pilgrimage.
These days, the Turkey Inn still sells Goose Eye beers, but the brewery has long since moved on. It had continued brewing in the village, on and off until 1988 when it closed when Brian Eastell moved to Australia. Returning to this country in 1991, he started up again along with Jack Atkinson, the father of the current boss, but this time the brewery was based in Ingrow, just outside Keighley, where it stayed until 2017. Meanwhile, Brian left and moved on to run the Old White Bear at Cross Hills in the mid-90's, and Jack's son David joined the business. The brewery continued to prosper, and the need for extra brewing capacity became apparent, eventually leading to a move to their current home on the Castlefields Industrial Estate in Crossflatts, near Bingley. Goose Eye continues to be a family business, and whilst Jack has now retired, Dave runs the company with both his sons, Joe and Jack, with the team being completed by Jamie Rowell.
Despite the fact that Goose Eye only brew traditional cask beers, the brewery is pretty modern with gleaming stainless steel vessels in abundance, and had impressed on a visit a few years ago, when it was apparent that this was a business run on common sense and traditional family values, with the customer's needs always in mind. Dave had told us then that the modern kit enabled them to ensure the quality of the beers is consistent. Only the best ingredients are used from respected suppliers, with malts sourced from Thomas Fawcett of Castleford and hops from Charles Faram of Worcestershire, whilst the yeast strain used originated from Thwaites Brewery in Blackburn. The brewery sell their beers predominantly in West and North Yorkshire, and East Lancashire, although one or two customers are further afield, and they are on the SIBA (Small Independent Brewers Association) list of suppliers to the wider trade.
I messaged Dave to say we would like to come over to discuss the beer, and so on a Thursday in early March, my bar mate Sid and I met in Bradford and caught the train from Forster Square Station to Crossflatts, from where it is about 5 minutes walk to the brewery. We wanted something a bit more premium than Chinook, with a slightly higher ABV but still quaffable. And so we reckoned something with an ABV of around 4.3%, with American hops but not with any Chinook, because it needed to be something different to the regular beer. Mosaic possibly? We met Dave there to discuss our thoughts and from that it was agreed a 4.3% session IPA with Mosaic as the lead hop with Citra in support would be a popular style based on the different qualities the two would bring to the brew. And bearing in mind a brew length is around 85 x 9 gallon barrels, and due to our size we could only take a proportion of that, it needed to be something that Goose Eye could sell on under a different name that would be acceptable to other customers.
So, what would our beer be called? There had been some discussion about this back at the bar but in the end we settled on Graysten Session IPA, this being a combination of a play on the Grayston Unity name and the actual anniversary that was being celebrated. Once confirmed, the artwork for the pump clip was designed, and supplied to the brewery to arrange production prior to the delivery of the beer.
And so to brew day, Tuesday, April 7th. Sid and I were this time joined by Tom, who was coming along to capture some footage of the day for the bar's socials, and had volunteered to act as chauffeur, which was much appreciated as brewing was due to start at 8am. He kindly picked us both up on the way there on what was a lovely sunny morning, and we duly arrived at the brewery about a quarter to eight. There was no immediate sign of life, the shutter doors were closed, but after a bit of banging on them they started to rise and we walked into the brewery, where Joe was already there. The brewing process was about to start, with the malted barley being loaded into a hopper, from where it was fed into the mash tun. The chosen malt variety was Maris Otter, which is used for a lot of pale beers, with some oats being added to enhance the mouthfeel and drinkability. Hot water, or liquor, as it is known in the brewery, is added to the mash tun, so that the resulting mix of grains and water resemble porridge. Over the next couple of hours or so, the enzymes in the malt would convert the starch present in to fermentable sugar. Game on!
So with a couple of hours to wait before anything else happened - to be fair Dave had warned us that there would be a lot of waiting around during the day - we took ourselves off to the Myrtle Grove in Bingley, where I enjoyed a better-than-normal Spoons breakfast, whilst Sid enjoyed a pint of Blueberry Bitter from Coach House brewery in Warrington, and Tom had a Guinness Zero, the lads having got a sandwich each on the way to the brewery before I was in need of food.
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| Sid and Tom; trouble brewing |
We arrived back at the brewery. Joe was about to start the next stage, with the liquid from the brew - now called wort - being filtered into another vessel, known as the copper or kettle. The remaining grains were then rinsed with more hot water to extract any residual sugars via a process called sparging. Once this was done, Joe's brother, Jack, climbed into the mash tun with a shovel and threw out the residue before the vessel went into a deep clean before the next brew, with the spent grains due to be sold to local farmers as cattle feed.
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| Looks like it's your turn to jump in, bro! |
With the wort boiling away in the copper, the next thing was to add the hops. They were delivered tightly vacuum-packed in a bag within a box, which Joe threw around and stood on in order to separate the hops. The bag was then cut open and the hops were tipped into a plastic container and fed into the boiling liquid in the copper, with me even climbing up the steps to tip some in myself. What struck me was the small quantity used considering the impact on the flavour and aroma of the beer. Essentially it works out at 250 grammes per 9 gallon barrel which shows the power of the hops. So here we were using 60% Mosaic to 40% Citra, with a further 5kg of Mosaic to be added dry at the end of the brew to enhance the flavour.
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| Adding the hops.... |
The wort with added hops boiled away for a while, and then whilst the spent hops were discarded, the liquid was filtered off and passed through a heat exchanger to reduce the temperature from where it went into a fermenting vessel in the next room, where a higher temperature was maintained to help the fermentation process. Later that evening, by which time we had left, Dave was going to add the yeast which would start the conversion of the malt sugars in to alcohol, and for the next week the liquid would be fermenting and bubbling away quite happily, developing its character before being racked into casks and having a further couple of days settling down before delivery.
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| Checking the beer is settling in to its home for the next week |
It was a great experience to be at a brewery for the brew day, particularly as the beer being brewed was one with which I had some involvement! What struck me was Goose Eye's assiduous approach to the whole process, from hygiene and cleanliness to methodology, the application of science and experience, and the amount of physical, hard work involved. It was a fascinating day full of steam and aromas where I learnt a hell of a lot about the brewing process, and so many thanks to Dave and Joe, and of course their four-legged colleague who kept a close watch on these three strange visitors to the brewery!
A couple of weeks later, in time for the beer festival that was being held at the Grayston Unity as part of the 10 year celebrations, several barrels of the beer were delivered, with a couple also being dropped off at the Meandering Bear. After resting in the cellar for a couple of days, the beer was finally ready to be put on the bar. I was away in London when it first came on, but on returning my first priority was to get my hands on a pint. Before I could say anything, one of the guys behind the bar said "that beer's going down well!" And it seemed as if people liked it too. So I ordered a pint. It was well-balanced, the softer tones of the Citra offsetting the slightly more bitter Mosaic. I have to say it was well-balanced and eminently quaffable, and whilst Sid and I had only come up with the style and spec, and chucked a few hops into the boil, it was still satisfying that a beer in which we'd had some involvement had turned out rather well.
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| Photo: The Grayston Unity |
The beer sold out pretty quickly at both bars, but a few more barrels had been reserved with Goose Eye for later delivery for the actual 10th anniversary of the old Grayston opening in May 2016. It seems as if the rest of the beer had been popular with the brewery's other customers too, which is good to know, so who knows, it might be a beer they brew again. It had been an interesting project to be involved with from inception to execution, and so once again many thanks to our friends at Goose Eye for making it happen....
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