What a pleasant way to spend an evening! Having driven round past Dukeries Garden Centre, we drove around the back of the Welbeck Estate with all its well maintained beautiful buildings, we met up in the Brewery yard and spent some time chatting between ourselves before Claire Monk introduced herself as the Brewery’s General Manager. During the course of her presentation we found out she was also a part owner, having studied microbiology and choosing beer making as her speciality! It’s a small brewery run by 10 people all of whom juggle their personal lives with the business requirements of the brewery.
Welbeck makes hand crafted ales, about 15,000 pints a week, which they only sell locally – within a radius of about 35 miles. Claire gave us barley and hops samples to smell and taste and explained how their different flavours resulted in the different ales produced. She showed us the brewing barrels, fermentation and maturation tanks. The brewery started their own bottling plant because of the covid restrictions on the pubs and now you can buy bottles to drink at home.
We were treated to a pint of our choice, just what we needed given the really hot weather, and we enjoyed a delicious buffet prepared by the Farm Shop. Our thanks to Jane for researching and finding this local gem – everyone enjoyed it immensely.
(Malcolm Storey)
I’d also like to record that 7 postal and new members joined us. It’s good to see them participating and enjoying our activities. (Jane Lowe)