The Brewing Process

Here at Elland we’re proud to be a traditional microbrewery. The process itself is broadly the same for all the beers we produce, we simply alter the ingredient mix and use different hop and malt varieties to create beers with different colours, tastes and aromas.

Now for those of you who have had the misfortune of asking a brewer the simple question of ‘how do we make our beer?’ then you will know how the last few hours have been for me. Worse still, he decided he wanted to ‘help’ so what follows is a mix of useful information (supplied by him) and gobbledigook (supplied by him).

Stage One

The process starts when we combine the crushed malted barley with our brewing water (or the liquor as it is known in the trade) in the mash-tun to create the mash. This mashing process allows the sugars in the malt to become more readily fermentable by the yeast.

The mash looks like a thick porridge (me).
The mash (or thick porridge as it is not known in the trade) is allowed to stand for about an hour before the sweet liquid known as ‘wort’ is drawn off. Once all the wort has been drawn from the mash tun into the kettle it is brought to the boil. This is when the first addition of hops are introduced which give the finished beer its bitterness.

Towards the end of the boil (which normally lasts 60 minutes) we add another batch of hops – this later addition gives the beer its flavour and aroma. The boiled wort is now ready for cooling and is pumped via a heat exchanger into a fermentation vessel to start stage two.

Stage Two - Fermenting

Fermentation is the process by which yeast is added to the wort where it begins converting the sugars into both alcohol and carbon dioxide. To begin the fermentation process, the wort is cooled to around 20c and pumped into a fermentation vessel (FV) where we pitch the yeast. The wort and yeast are roused via a pump to ensure the yeast is equally mixed within the FV. Fermentation takes around 48hrs for our lower strength beers and longer for higher strength beers such as 1872 Porter. After approximately 48hrs we check the strength (or Gravity) of the beer to ensure the beer is at the correct alcohol level.

Once fermentation is finished the yeast which accumulates on top of the beer is skimmed off and saved so it can be added to the next batch of beer. The beer is then left to cool to around 8c for approximately 15 hours ready for filling into casks, or ‘Racking’.

Stage Three – Racking

At this stage the beer is ready to be put into casks.

In preparation the casks are washed and sanitised ready for the cooled beer. A hose is attached to the FV to begin filling. As casks are filled an amount of Isinglass finings are added to ensure clear bright beer.

Once the casks are filled they are sealed and taken into our cold store where they are left for a week to mature before going out into trade.

And that’s it! We can drink it.

PLEASE NOTE: Postal delivery for bottles is temporarily unavailable, however direct local delivery is an option to all HX postcodes and HD1, HD2, HD3, HD5 and HD6. You're also welcome to collect from the brewery! Dismiss