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WHY WE THINK OUR BEER IS SPECIAL AND, DARE WE SAY, BETTER.

We may not take ourselves too seriously, but we do take brewing quite seriously. So, kidding aside, here's a list of things that we do that makes each gyle of our beer unique and, we believe, better than the average micro-brew.

All of our beer recipes call for only barley malt, hops, yeast and water, with the exception of a limited quantity of wheat which we add for head retention.

THE BEST QUALITY INGREDIENTS

We use only the best ingredients we can find. We have never made a price-based decision when it comes to ingredients. We buy what we think will make the best beer... end of. When larger breweries use terms like "choicest hops" it means the hops that were chosen - quite likely because they were cheaper. We never do that. Our Pale Malt of choice is Maris Otter. All our Malt is supplied by Thomas Fawcett’s of Castleford. The Fawcett family has been making malt in Castleford, West Yorkshire since the late 1780's. The majority of our hops are supplied by Charles Faram & Co who have been established as hop merchants for over 100 years, based in Worcestershire. We also import directly some varieties ourselves from Australia, New Zealand and America.

GENEROUS QUANTITIES OF THESE INGREDIENTS

You will find that our beers have much higher than average starting gravities for their relative styles. This simply means we put a lot more malt and hops into them so you get a lot more out.

MASHED BY HAND

Terms like "brewed by hand" and "hand crafted" are grossly over-used and essentially meaningless in the brewing business at large, but here's what it means for us. We actually haul and dump six or seven 25kg bags of grain, continually stir a roughly 600kg 75C degree mash by hand and manually check and recheck the consistency of the mash to ensure uniformity. Incidentally, it also means that we shovel out 150/175kg of wet grain by hand when we're done, although that really doesn't benefit the beer in any way.

FERMENTATION

All of our beers undergo open primary fermentation so they can freely expel unwanted gases during the active first few days of fermentation. This allows us to monitor the progress of the fermentation first hand by watching the development of the head and even smelling the beer. This gives us an insight into the behaviour of each batch that we would never have with closed fermentation and it allows us to care for the beer accordingly. Our fermenters are converted dairy tanks so they are extremely clean and the beer is well protected.

CONDITIONING

We are one of only a handful of breweries in the North West that choose to let our beers clarify naturally by remaining in conditioning tanks to help the beers aging. This extra time also allows the flavour of the beer to come into maturity.

NO FILTERING

We never filter our beers.

NO PASTEURIZING

We never pasteurize our beers. If any vitamins weren't removed by filtering, pasteurizing would destroy them along with any enzymes and a great deal of the more delicate flavours and aromas.

TRADE ENQUIRIES

We deliver to the free trade across the North West. For sales enquiries please phone Cheryl at the Brewery on 01942 234976 or go to the contact page and complete the form and send a Sales enquiry.

We are also members of the SIBA DDS scheme which allows delivery into Enterprise, Admiral, Punch and Orchid pub companies within the North West. To order via this scheme please see your regional manager for details or if you are already a member simply order the All Gates beers of your choice.

View our range of regular, monthly, seasonal beers & Ciders.