Burton-on-Trent: The Soul of British Brewing
By Jay Brooks
In its heyday, Burton-on-Trent, in England’s Midlands, was a 50,000 person-town that boasted 1,100 pubs — one for every 45 people. It was also once home to more than 30 breweries, including some of history’s biggest; Allsopp, Bass, Boddington, Marston, and Worthington made big names in this tiny town. But, economic decline wiped out some giants, and today, if you couldn’t identify brewing equipment, you’d be tempted to believe Burton resembles any former industrial town down on its luck. To the beer savvy, there are signs everywhere that beer is what fueled this place; discarded copper kettles, tall, stainless fermenters and other brewing equipment litter the town. Down every meandering street is yet another grand old shuttered brick building for lease, many over 100 years old. Though it may no longer be fair to consider Burton-on-Trent the Capital of British Brewing, it will always remain its soul.
But before the rise and fall of beer, there was the water. Pure water was locked in sandstone aquifers deep in the earth, beneath the town, 10,000 years ago. The water proved miraculous for brewing, especially for the pale ales that were beginning to become popular in the late 18th century. When Bass opened in Burton in 1777, it was the beginning of the town’s glory days.
Back then, when the industrial revolution was just about to get churning, beer was dark and murky, with small particles floating in it. Few people used clear drinking glasses, so, fortunately, nobody much cared what their beer looked like. The dawn of pale ales, however, marked a change of heart; using new industrial sciences, it became possible to brew a beer that was clear and lighter in color. Like golden pilsners that were all the rage in central Europe, pale ales took the public by storm.
The water from Burton’s aquifers contains heavy concentrations of gypsum that lends calcium sulfate that gives beer a subtle sulfury note, like a lit match. This hint of sulfur became known as the “Burton snatch,” and proved to be incredibly desirable in pale ales and similarly hoppy beers, like India pale ales. (Nowadays, brewers can chemically manipulate their water’s pH, and add or subtract those signature characters. When modern brewers treat their water to make it similar to Burton’s water, they say it’s been “Burtonized.”) In those days, water composition was paramount, so breweries located themselves as close as possible to the best sources of water. By 1888, Burton was producing three million barrels of beer annually, 25 percent of all beer brewed in England. Recently, several more brewing upstarts have begun brewing in Burton, like a Phoenix from the ashes — in some cases literally, as some new beermakers adopt the discarded buildings of Burton’s once great breweries.
Burton Bridge Brewery
Founded in 1982, this oldest of the new breweries sits just a few yards from the Burton Bridge that spans the River Trent. It’s a brewery attached to a pub (similar to an American brewpub) and serves 14 year-round beers and another 10 seasonals, most of them award-winning, though the top choice is Bridge Bitter, the brewery’s original offering that continues to be its flagship. It’s deep amber with fruity hop aromas, some nuttiness, and a whiff of sulfur, followed by nice bitterness, fruity notes, some honeyed sweetness, and a very dry finish. The popularity of that beer and its others have allowed the brewery to expanded with five additional pubs that serve its beer, known as Tied Houses in the UK.
Marston’s
Oddly, since 2005, Bass has been brewed in Burton-on-Trent’s other remaining historic brewery. Marston’s continues to brew its flagship Marston’s Pedigree on a Burton Union System, the last Burton brewery to use this traditional method of brewing. It looks vastly different from any brewery you’ve ever visited. It requires giant rooms with rows of big wooden casks — four times the average size — all linked together with a long trough above them and two on each end. As it ferments, excess yeast is pushed out of the kegs through a swan-shaped metal pipe into the trough, which is then collected on the two ends only to flow back into the casks where it continues to ferment as the cycle repeats. Marston’s also brews, using more modern techniques, several other beers, such as Burton Bitter, Old Empire, Oyster Stout, and Ringwood Best Bitter, but the best illustration of the Burton Snatch is Pedigree. Reminiscent of a freshly lit match, the Snatch shows up in the nose along with fruity, toffee aromas; subtle fruity flavors, malt sweetness, and a pleasant touch of sour tartness create a very well-balanced brew. The only other Burton set is in California, where the Firestone Walker Brewery uses a similar system to brew traditional English pale ales. (Last year, Firestone Walker’s Matt Brynildson trekked to Marston’s, where he’d been invited to brew a pale ale using American hops for the JD Wetherspoon International Beer Festival.)
The Black Hole Brewery
Just a jaunt down the road from Marston’s (one of the few remaining giants), Black Hole occupies only a sliver of what was once the Ind Coope bottling plant, an early brewery that ceased operations in the 1990s. Started in January of 2007, Black Hole’s Red Dwarf bitter quickly became its flagship among seven regular offerings, available throughout the area on tap. The beer was named for a British Sci-Fi show of the same name, and is appropriately copper-red. The nose is mostly malty with hints of licorice and berries, while flavors are nutty, almost roasty, with a fruity berry character and a sweet, dry finish.
Tower Brewery
Its building was once the water tower for Walsitch Maltings, who supplied malt to the Tomas Salt Brewery, once the second largest brewery in town. Abandoned for a number of years, the tower’s broken window in the uppermost floor became a refuge for pigeons. Thus, owner John Mills’ first job was removing several feet of droppings by shoveling it into bags and lowering them down three stories by crane. Happily, the brewery is now pigeon-free, and only the aroma of beer fills the air. Mills brews five regular beers, four rotating seasonals and a number of one-off beers whenever the mood hits him. Try Tower Pale Ale, a golden amber with a small, tight white head. A fruity, tangy nose with baked bread notes introduces a swallow that’s initially malty but fruity, balanced by a citrusy hop character and a short, dry finish.
Old Cottage Beer Co.
The city’s smallest brewery sells its beers in a quaint corner pub near Burton’s town hall. You can always find three regular beers from the brewery, but look for the stout, which is particularly fine, or opt for Burton Old Cottage Oak Ale, a sweet brew with a hop bite and dry, bitter finish. Cottage also brews eight more traditional English ales.
Coors
No matter where you are in Burton, you’ll see bright red rectangles on smokestacks and tall buildings, reminders that Coors has owned the famous Bass brewery since 2002. The operations enormity is astounding: It’s not one single brewery, but a massive warren of structures that are seemingly everywhere. The operation is now used primarily to brew other beers under license, mostly lagers, along with several English brands. Coors still has one tiny brewery that makes Worthington’s White Shield, a historic bottle-conditioned English-style IPA. Brewer Steve Wellington was coaxed out of retirement several years ago to man the ancient brewing equipment and traditional methods to make it.
– Beer scribe Jay Brooks blogs regularly at brookstonbeerbulletin.com.
