Postcard from Yorkshire: Theakston's Brewery Tour

When I was in Ireland, I did the Guinness brewery tour. Actually, one has the 'Guinness experience' which is not, as anyone who has had a night on the Guinness might reasonably suspect, a polite reference to the bowel based madness that occurs the next morning, but a fun but sanitised visit to an area of the vast brewery in Dublin which is a sort of cross between a visitor centre, a museum and a sort of beery thrill ride, culminating in a free pint at the bar at the top of the place.


The Theakston's tour was nothing like this. It was a tour, of the brewery. We went into what was a surprisingly small space compete with steam gushing from vents, puddles of water here and there and the sort of very sharp metal corners on equipment that are only found in places where serious people do serious business.


The mystery of brewing was explained to us, and we followed our guide round getting an appreciation of the art. We passed little dishes of malt along the line, tasting a pinch like supplicants taking the Host, we looked into vast tanks full of beer and dodged workers who ignored us and got on with their mysterious work. This was alchemy and the upshot of the fascinating tour was that I now have a greater appreciation of real ale than ever before and I can use the word 'hoplet' (a small plug of compressed hops placed into the barrel of beer prior to sealing it so that it can cask condition) with authority.


The other thing I learned, apart from the astonishing fact that it only takes 15 blokes in the brewery to make all the Theakson's that's made, is that it's important to get the right gear when setting up. When a Leeds steam engine company contacted the brewery and asked if it could have the steam engine they thought might be there, that was over one hundred years old, for its museum, they were told no, as it was still in use. It was too, although I detected that great engineering breakthrough of the twentieth century, gaffa tape, had been employed quite a bit in maintaining it.

Finished the tour in the Black Bull in Paradise, chatting with a chap who had also been on the tour and, from the way he was discussing the real ale, had treated the visit to the brewery as others might perform a pilgrimage.