February 2008 Northern Kite on sale in the House of Commons Bar
December 2007 Bottled Rocket winner of Tesco Drinks Award for the North of England
November 2007 Launched new ale Northern Kite
February 2007 The new plant was in production in August 2006 and all products were transferred to the new plant by September. Plant is working very well
June 2006. May was an all time record for sales and we need the extra capacity that will be provided by the new plant in the new premises adjacent to the old brewery. We have taken delivery of the new vessels (20 barrel capacity) and hope to have them in production by the end of June. See our new flier here.
January 2004. We have a special winter brew on - a 5.9% ‘double bock’ German style black beer - plum pud in a glass, called Terminator. We are still stocking a champion Vintage Cider in 12 x 1 litre bottle cases and a Farmhouse Scrumpy in 20 litre boxes. We also supply 10 (17 pints) and 20 litre(35 pints) polypins (beer in a box) with an adapter for a hand pull. Everything you need for a party or function. Bottled beers coming soon. Ask Avril for details.
Our Summer Magic won the 2003 Cotswold beer festival ansd was on the shortlist for Beer of Britain 2003. By popular demand we kept it on as Wylam Magic.
10th April 2001 At the 25th CAMRA Newcastle Beer Festival on 4th - 7th April 2001, Wylam Brewery was awarded Champion Beer of the festival for their Gold Tankard bitter. The 4.0% ABV golden coloured ale was commissioned by Alastair Gilmore to celebrate recently receiving the UK Beer Writer of the Year Award from the British Guild of Beer Writers. He was presented with a gold tankard. Alastair works for the Newcastle Journal.
The beer was designed by Tim Gatenby, (an ex brewer), Sales Director of J P Simpson & Co, malsters of Berwick who supplied the malts for the brew. The recipe has a golden theme and consists of: Golden Promise Malted barley, Golden Naked Oats, with First Gold and Willamette hops.
Wylam Brewery was set up last year in an old farm dairy near Heddon on the Wall by retirees Robin Leighton (Brewing Director) and John Boyle (Marketing and Distribution). Though the brewery has been in production for only 6 months, their beers have quickly gained a reputation for quality and flavour. They are available at the brewery tap, The Boathouse Wylam, and in many pubs in the region. This award is seen as a first step to wider recognition of the brewery and its beers, both locally and nationally.
24th March 2001Foot and Mouth Disease is devastating our farming community. Keith's (our landlord) animals are disease free so far but may become part of the healthy animal cull - a terrible waste of a life's work. We're managing to keep going using our own entrance to the brewery and remaining isolated from the farm.We may have to contract our brewing to a neighbouring brewery if things deteriorate further.
19th February 2001 Well we built it, 3 x 5 barrel FVs and 9 x 5 barrel conditioning tanks, 7.5 barrel each, hot liquor, mash tun and copper and a big cream van. We've been in production now for 5 months and learnt a lot fast! It ain't as easy as it looks and we've had our share of plumbing and production problems - from wrong copper finings doses - as recommended by the manufacturer - which ripped all the goodness out of the wort and left a very bright tasteless beer! - to stuck fermentations, bug infections,a dud FV thermostat which killed a few brews until we caught it pumping hot water at 38C! - burned out boiler heaters etc etc. Still great fun though, and we're making the brews consistently excellent now.We constantly find better ways of doing things so the investment in equipment continues.We're a bit fed up with collecting duty and VAT for H M Government at extortionate rates which reduce our competeiveness with the big breweries. Our organisation - SIBA - is lobbying for a two tier duty system with a half rate for small independant micros like ourselves. We hope they pull it off. We're a limited company now - Wylam Brewery Ltd - which gives advantages for tax purposes.Call in to see us and sample our beer. Phone first to make sure we will be around.
7th July 2000: Our planning application was approved yesterday! The mash room refurbishment is mostly complete and work has started on the fermentation/conditioning tank room.
27th June 2000 Notes on Planning Application
Planning Application 00D249 - Brewery at South Houghton
Information for neighbours
This will be a small brewing enterprise that will produce batches of cask conditioned real ale for sale to the pub trade. It meets local development aims of diversifying farming activities and creating jobs.
The brewing process involves ‘mashing’ malted barley with hot water to produce a malty liquid or ‘wort’, which is boiled with hops for 1.5 to 2 hours before being cooled, fermented, matured, and filled into casks. This process will produce a pleasant malty aroma and small quantities of steam during boiling time – probably 6 to 8 hours per week. This will be dealt with by filtering and condensing the exausted steam. Other operations involve cleaning tanks and pipe runs by circulating dilute cleaning and sanitising chemicals similar to those used in milk production. Fresh water is used for cooling, heating and washing vessels. The resulting liquid effluent will be PH neutral and will be stored in an existing collecting tank for disposal by tanker. The only significant waste product is spent malt grains, a valuable animal feed, which will be used to feed animals on site.
We hope we can reassure you that the impact on our environment and amenities will be absolutely minimal. If anything our operations will have significantly less effect than the previous milking process, with fewer collections and deliveries, much less noise, smell and effluent, than before.
NOTES:
1. EFFLUENT - No effluent from brewing operations will be allowed to pass through shared drainage, or adjacent property, in any way. All washings etc. will be collected in a holding tank for disposal by tanker.
2. SMELL - The brewing process will produce a small amount of steam and aroma for about 6 hours per week. This will be removed from the boiler flue by filter and condenser.
3. NOISE - We expect to be active on site for 2 or 3 days per week during normal business hours. The noise generated by the brewing process is minute compared to twice daily milking of a herd of cows, traffic on the adjacent main road, existing livery or farm activities etc. We doubt if anyone will be able to hear the yeast fermenting, and casks will be handled on rubber mats to minimise damage to them. No bottling activities will take place on site.
4. TRAFFIC - We expect to make one light van delivery per day. A larger vehicle will deliver malted barley once a month.
We are committed to a friendly, co-operative, nuisance-free relationship with our neighbours and the community as a whole. If you have any questions, misgivings or objections concerning our proposal then we would be pleased to discuss them with you at any time. For more information contact John Boyle 2 Oakwood Cottages Wylam. Tel: 01661 852760 Mob: 079 79 59 79 99, or call on site.