BREWERIES STILL USING WOODEN CASKS and/or COOPERS

Allanwater Brewery

The Brewhouse

Queens Lane

Bridge of Allan

FK9 4NY

Tel: 01786 834555

Website: Allanwater Brewhouse – Bridge of Allan

Beer Nouveau

75 North Western Street

Manchester

M12 6DY

Website: https://beernouveau.co.uk/

Beer Nouveau specialise in Historic & Heritage Beers, rebrewing recipes from as far back as Ancient Egypt and Viking times, with limited amounts stored and served from wooden casks at our brewery tap where we’re more than happy to discuss the beer and how it has influenced modern beer styles.

We’ve added to this with our barrel-ageing programme where we keep the heritage styles in wooden barrels for as long as they would have been when they were originally made.

We also brew a lot of experimental beers, often with foraged ingredients, as well as being home to the Manchester Hop Project, who grow hops for us in people’s gardens and allotments in and around the city for our annual Green Hop beer.

Our only regularly brewed beer is Peterloo, a 4% light-bodied porter that is available all year round, because people do want dark beers in the summer, including us.

The Chiltern Brewery

Nash Lee Road
Terrick
Aylesbury
Buckinghamshire
HP17 0TQ
Tel (01296) 613647
Fax (01296) 612419
Website: https://chilternbrewery.co.uk/

In 2012 the brewery launched what they thought was a UK first. They commissioned England’s only Master Cooper, Alastair Simms, to craft firkins from puncheons that came from the Balgray bottling plant, Ayrshire (between 60 & 100 years old). The heads were made from new English oak & the two pins were made from new oak from Wadworth’s & Young’s of London. Their Winter seasonal favourite draught, 300’s Old Ale, was launched & sold exclusively from these casks. Darker seasonal beers are served from wooden casks behind the bar at The Farmers’ Bar, the brewery tap in Aylesbury. Copper Beech & 300’s Old Ale are being served from the wood. The brewery also have one wooden cask atop the bar, gravity poured & changed on a weekly basis. They only put their darker beers into the wooden casks.

Clun Brewery

Clun
Shropshire
SY7 8JA
Telephone: 01588 640305

They regularly brew into wood and regularly put those beers on in the White Horse Inn Clun.

The Grainstore Brewery

Station Approach,
Oakham,
Rutland,
LE15 6RE
Tel 01572 770065
Fax
Email /
Website

Occasional brews in wooden barrels (Phipps).

Hawkshead Brewery Ltd

Gemma Greenbank
Hawkshead Brewery Ltd
Mill Yard, Staveley
Cumbria
LA8 9LR
Telephone: 01539 822644
https://www.hawksheadbrewery.co.uk/

They have an annual programme of whisky cask aged beers, matured through the year and released in November pre Christmas. The description which encompasses them all is: a limited edition annual release of hand bottled, bottle conditioned, strong dark beers matured for several months in oak whisky casks.

The type of beer will vary. There will usually be an “Imperial Stout” and a “Brodie’s Prime Reserve” but they will change according to the type of cask they are matured in.

The Beer Hall, the brewery tap, adjoined to the brewery is the best place to enjoy their beers, and is open everyday from 12pm. There is also a speciality bottle shop, and they deliver to pubs throughout the North West not just The Lake District.

Innis and Gunn Brewery

PO Box 17246
Edinburgh
EH11 1YR
Telephone: 0131 337 4420
Email /
https://www.innisandgunn.com/

We do supply a small number of outlets with beer in the wood. We have 8 x 36 pint wooden casks (made by Theakstons) which we put out to the Clachnaharry Inn, Inverness, the Glenmoriston Arms Hotel, Invermoriston and (occasionally) to the Benleva Hotel, Drumnadrochit. As far as I know we are the only Scottish brewery to supply beer from the wood. Dispense is always by gravity.

We only produce one bottle-conditioned beer – a naturally cloudy wheat beer called “Misty Isle”. We are pleased that it won the silver medal in the inaugural Champion Bottle-conditioned Beer of Scotland competition last month held at the Ayrshire Beer Festival.

Best Regards
Angus MacRuary
Managing Director

Marston’s PLC

Marston’s House,
Brewery Road,
Wolverhampton,
WV1 4JT
Telephone: 01902 711811
Fax: 01902 429136
https://www.marstonspubs.co.uk/

Ossett Brewing Company Limited

Paul Spencer, Head Brewer
Kings Yard
Low Mill Road
Ossett
West Yorkshire
WF5 8ND
Telephone: 01924 261333
Email / Website / Twitter

Alistair Simms, Master Cooper, has supplied 4 wooden firkins to the Ossett Brewing Company. They were filled with 7.4% Russian Imperial Stout, Ratsputin, which is brewed at subsidiary Rat Brewery in Huddersfield.

One firkin will be kept for sale at the Rat and Ratchet where the Rat Brewery is located.

Ossett Brewery operates three microbreweries: Rat Brewery, Fernandes Brewery tap and Riverhead Brewery Tap. Fernandes Brewery Tap produced their Black Voodoo Chocolate Orange Stout 5.1% in the wood exclusively for the 2015 Wakefield Beer festival.

Purple Moose Brewery Ltd

Madoc Street
Porthmadog
Gwynedd
LL49 9DB
Telephone: 01766 515571
Email: / Website

They had six wooden firkins made by T&R Theakston to use on a delivery wagon. They carried out a delivery by train from behind the brewery to Spooner’s Bar on the railway as a publicity stunt in October 2012, and now use their wooden casks quite regularly for their Dark Side of the Moose, specifically at Spooner’s Bar on the Ffestiniog Railway. They have in mind to see if this outlet would be happy to permanently take Dark Side of the Moose in wooden casks.

The Ridgeside Brewing Company Ltd

Unit 24, Penraevon 2 Trading Estate
Meanwood
Leeds
LS7 2AW
Mob: 07595 380568 (Simon Bolderson)
Email / Website

CRUX beer was served from a wooden cask at the York beer festival in September 2015.

Samuel Smith Old Brewery (Tadcaster)

High Street
Tadcaster
North Yorkshire
LS24 9SB
Telephone: 01937 832225
FAX: 01937 834673
Email: / Website

The brewery still has its own cooper making and repairing all its oak casks; all Samuel Smith’s naturally conditioned draught beer is handpulled from oak casks.

Old Brewery Bitter is still reported as being served from wooden casks.

Siren Craft Brew

Unit 1 Weller Drive
Finchampstead
Wokingham
RG40 4QZ
Tel 0118 973 0929
Fax
Email /
Website

We take a carefully crafted American Hoppy Barley Wine and the age it in various barrels for the year, with the goal of bringing them together in a harmonious blend prior to bottling. This journey means that each individual barrel will impart different characteristics on the beer, sometimes from the quality and type of wood used, but more potent the liquid stored in it previously. Each vintage will use different mixes of barrels from both spirit and wine, however, the goal is to make the best blend possible, not use all of the beer, so some barrels may not make the cut at all or only be required as a very small percentage.

Siren Craft hold annual wood festivals to showcase their own bottle-conditioned beers and others.

SJennings Bros. PLC.

Castle Brewery
High Street
Cockermouth
Cumbria
CA13 9NE
Telephone: 0845 1297185
FAX: 0845 1297186
Email / Website

T & R Theakston Ltd

The Brewery
Masham
Ripon
North Yorkshire
HG4 4YD
Telephone: 01765 680000
FAX: 01765 689414
Email: / Website

Cooper: Jonathon Manby

Theakston Brewery are the only brewery to employ a full time craft cooper, Jonathan Manby, who is the last apprenticed brewery craft cooper in the country. They sell their famous Old Peculier in wooden casks, and wanted to point out that they are very proud of this indeed.

Tarn Hows Brewery

For sales, beer and general enquiries contact Kelly or Alastair.
Low Bield
Knipe Fold
Ambleside
Cumbria
LA22 0PU
Telephone: +44 (0) 7935 789581
Email / Website / Twitter

Tarn Hows Brewery is a tiny brewery based near Ambleside, in the heart of the picturesque Lake District. Established in 2014, and proudly brewing with an English crafted two-barrel plant, we aim to make ale and beers using traditional methods by using the finest ingredients and serving most of our ales in wooden casks.
Wooden casks enhance flavour, aid clarfication without chemicals and are environmentally more sustainable than their metal counterparts.

Tarn Hows had three beers in wood at the 2015 Liverpool Beer Festival: Puddled Duck(IPA) , Grized Ale (Old Ale Style) and Beertrix Porter (Dark Stuff). Puddled Duck was voted beer of the festival.

Traquair House Brewery Ltd

Traquair House
Innerleithen
Peebleshire
Scotland
Tel: 44 (0)1896 830323
Email / Website:

Thank you for your enquiry. Traquair is certainly the pioneer of micro breweries and also pre dates CAMRA, having been set up in 1965 in the 18th century brewery at Traquair.

Although we are not supplying ale in wooden casks all our ales are fermented in unlined oak tuns which is fairly unique in itself!

Best Regards

Catherine Maxwell Stuart

Wadworth

Northgate Brewery
Devizes
Wiltshire
SN10 1JW
Telephone: 01380 723361/7
Fax: 01380 724342
E-mail /
Website

White Rose Cooperage Ltd

Unit191, Street 6,
Thorp Arch Estate
Wetherby
LS23 7FP
01937 845627
07557 374528
E-mail /
Website

Cooper:
Alastair.D.Simms
Master Cooper/Owner

Apprentice cooper: Kean Hiscock

ONE of the UK’s only independent cooperages, the ancient trade of making traditional casks from wooden staves for beer, wine, cider and spirits, has been established in Yorkshire. The White Rose Cooperage at Thorp Arch Estate has been set up by master cooper Alastair Simms, who is one of only four brewery coopers in the UK and took his apprenticeship at Theakstons Brewery, Masham before 18 years at brewers Wadworth & Co in Devizes.

The Wild Beer Co

Lower Westcombe Farm,
Evercreech
Somerset
BA4 6ER
Telephone:
Email / Website

The Wild Beer Co in Somerset is producing interesting beers on wood. Some of their beers will be aged in oak to allow the soft vanilla and rich tannins to help mature the beer, others fermented with wild yeast strains to add layers of flavour and complexity to the beer.

Reported in CAMRA’s Summer 2014 edition of Beer, in an article about sour beers and lambics: Wild Beer Co has more than 140 wooden barrels and uses brettanomyces for many of its beers, plus its farmhouse location is leading it towards spontaneous fermentation in the future.There was also an interesting full page article on so-called ‘extreme beers’ in the 3 February edition of Metro (a free paper in London). It confirms the commitment by the Wild Beer Company (wildbeerco.com) to using oak barrels to mature its beers. The article mentions red wine barrels from Burgundy, and bourbon barrels from the US.

World Cooperage

E-mail: / Website:

Founded in 1912, World Cooperage is the leading cooperage in the world and has grown to match the demand for the best quality oak wine barrels. We proudly craft oak wine barrels with the same commitment to quality and service as our founder T.W. Boswell established four generations ago. Our focus is always on quality and innovation, and as proof of this World Cooperage’s parent company, cooperages, and mills were awarded ISO 9001:2000 certification in 2007.

World Cooperage has a global presence with stave mills in the United States and France, and sales offices and warehouses in North America, South America, France, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. A century since the company’s founding, World Cooperage still embodies solid values, tradition, vision, hard work, customer service, and quality.

The Worshipful Company of Coopers

Coopers’ Hall
13 Devonshire Square
London EC2M 4TH
Telephone +(44)0207 247 9577
E-mail: / Website

The Worshipful Company of Coopers is one of the oldest in the City of London. In modern times it has evolved into the trustee of 6 principal charities, and a social and charitable enterprise that retains an identity focused on the ancient craft of cask making.

We welcome members from many walks of life to enjoy a fellowship around our shared values and an interest in the history, culture and charitable endeavours that our company has pursued for the last 500 or so years.

XT Brewing Co