The Brewery
Little Valley Brewery has a ‘brew length’ (i.e. how much can be brewed in one go) of 10 barrels, which is about 3000 pints. To produce a brew takes about 9 hours, fermentation will take place for the following 4-5 days, cooling the beer down in the fermenting tanks takes 2 days and then the Little Valley beers mature for at least 2 weeks.
This means that the minimum time period taken to produce a Little Valley cask beer is 3 weeks, bottle conditioned beer needs an extra 14 days for its second fermentation. So, the minimum period to produce Little Valley bottle conditioned beer is 5 weeks.
Beer is (mostly) made out of 4 ingredients, water, malt, hops and yeast. Little Valley only sources organic ingredients, where possible. Since September 2005, Little Valley has been approved by the Soil Association (the main organic body). In some brews we use other ingredients; such as organic coriander seeds and lemon peel in our Hebden’s Wheat.
We also source our ingredients and suppliers as locally as possible.
Water
By volume water is the main ingredient in beer (90%). Our water is sourced from the nearby Withens reservoir. The water is very pure and soft which makes it very suitable to produce top quality beers.
Malt
Little Valley sources its organic malt from Warminster Maltings in Wiltshire and Muntons Maltings in Suffolk. There are various types of malt such as Pale Ale malt, Wheat malt, Crystal malt and Chocolate malt. The different malts give different flavours, taste and colour to the beer.
The main purpose of malt is to extract sugars which will be fermented into alcohol.
Hops
Hops are the most distinguished ingredient in beer, hops give flavour and bitterness to the beer. Little Valley sources its organic hops from England, Belgium, Germany and New Zealand. The hops are mainly used in the form of pellets, which can be easily separated from the wort (beer) with the whirlpool.
Hops are used to improve flavour and taste and to improve the shelf life of the beer.
Yeast
Yeast is used to transform the sugars into alcohol; it also gives a lot of flavour to the beer. The yeast we use for our Hebden’s Wheat gives it the fruity and ‘banana-like’ flavour.
Little Valley has a specific yeast obtained from Brew Lab in Sunderland which we re-use in every following brew. We pitch the yeast from a brew which has finished fermentation and store it in a fridge until the next brew.
Milling
The malt needs to be crushed first to enable water to enter the malt. The milling for Little Valley malt is done at the maltings, this reduces the problems with dust in the brewery.
Mashing In
The crushed malt is mixed with water at a temperature of around 70°C and put into the mash tun. The mash is kept for 90 minutes at 64-65°C. At this temperature the starch in the malt is transformed into sugars, at the end of the 90 minutes the liquid is very sweet and sticky.
The mash tun contains a perforated bottom, which will keep the spent grains (remains of the malt) in the mash tun.
Lautering
The sweet liquid, called wort, is drained off in a bucket (called underbag) and pumped over in a copper, this process is called Lautering.
After the main part of the wort is drained out into the copper, the mash is sprayed at the top with hot water (70-78°C) to rinse out as much of the sugars as possible; this is also drained and pumped into the copper. We keep rinsing until we have enough wort in the copper (9-10 barrels).
Boiling
As soon as we have reached the correct volume of wort in the copper the heating elements are switched on and we begin to heat the wort. It takes 2 hours before the wort begins to boil; at that point the first lot of hops are added to the wort (the bitter hops addition). After one hour of rigorous boiling the second hops are added (the aroma hops addition). After 10 more minutes of boiling the heating elements are turned off and the boil has finished.
Clarifying
As soon as the boil has finished the whirlpool pump is turned on, this causes a ‘swirling’ effect within the copper and results in a separation of the hops and ‘heat’ break in the middle of the copper (the same principle as stirring a cup of tea with tea leaves in so that the leaves end up in the middle of the cup). By extracting the wort from the side of the copper we will get very clear and clean hot wort.
Cooling
The wort in the copper is around 90°C but needs to be at a temperature of 20°C for fermentation. To cool the wort down to 20°C we use a heat exchanger in which the wort enters at 98oC but leaves at 20°C. To cool the wort down, cold water enters the heat exchanger at 10oC but leaves at 70°C (this water is pumped back to the hot liquor tank and used for the next brew), the wort is then pumped to the fermentation vessel.
At 20oC, the wort is transferred into the fermentation vessel and spread into a film to allow oxygen to enter the wort. This oxygen is needed for the yeast to start up the fermentation process. As soon as all the wort in the vessel has been collected 5kg yeast, which has been stored in the fridge, is added to the wort. The fermentation will now begin and the temperature will slowly rise over 4-5 days to 25oC.
When the fermentation is finished the yeast is ‘cropped’ from the top and stored in the fridge for the next brew. After cropping the yeast we chill the fermenting vessel using a cooler, it takes 2 days to drop the temperature to 8oC, in this time any yeast that was still in suspension will have dropped to the bottom.
After the beer has been cooled down to 8°C in the fermentation vessel it is transferred into 2 tanks in the maturation room, this room is kept at 9°C.
The beer in the closed vessel is now given time to allow the sediment to drop to the bottom. This process takes at least 14 days and in this time the beer also ferments a little more and forms carbon dioxide, which gives the beer a little fizz. This process is known as maturation.
Casks
After 2 weeks the beer is ready to be filled into casks and stored in the cask room at 9°C until it is delivered out to pubs and other outlets.
Bottles
Little Valley also produces bottle conditioned beer. The first step in the bottling process is to transfer the beer from a maturation vessel into the mixing tank. In the mixing tank we add sugar and fresh yeast and mix it thoroughly, this process is called priming.
The primed beer is transferred to the bottle filler. Before filling the new bottles with beer they are labelled, with a best before date printed onto the label, rinsed with fresh water and drained for a minute on a bottle tree.
After filling the bottle is capped with a crown cap and placed in boxes of 12 bottles. Once all the bottles have been filled they are transferred into the warm room, this room is kept at a constant temperature of 20°C. By keeping the bottles in the warm room for a further 2 weeks a second fermentation will begin and produce carbon dioxide to give fizz to the beer.
The final stage of conditioning the beer at Little Valley Brewery takes place in the bottle, hence the name ‘bottle conditioned beer’.
As a result of this process the beer will contain a layer of yeast sediment at the bottom of the bottle.
Draught beer
Cask beer is a ‘live’ beer which needs some time to allow the sediment to settle. It is pulled using hand pumps and is clear and slightly fizzy when served at cellar temperature (10-14°C).
Bottle conditioned beer
Bottle conditioned beer is also a ‘live’ beer and contains a layer of yeast sediment at the bottom. To pour a clear pint the beer needs to rest upright at least 24 hours before serving (this allows the sediment to re-settle after transportation).
After opening the bottle pour the beer slowly into a pint glass, holding the glass at a 45°angle, with the top of the bottle close to the glass. By slowly raising the bottom of the bottle you can keep pouring until you see the sediment moving towards the bottle top. By stopping at that point, you will have a clean pint and only a few drops of beer, and the sediment, left in the bottle.