Castle Rock gets bigger by getting smaller

Castle Rock Brewery in Nottingham has increased its real ale output with the refurbishment of a redundant piece of kit to add a new five barrel fermenting vessel to the existing brew plant set. “It’ll allow us to be even more innovative and widen the boundaries of the beer flavours we present to our customers,” says head brewer Adrian Redgrove. “With it in place we can add more distinctive and interesting flavours being sought by a broad spectrum of beer enthusiasts including younger people and women.”

The more varied array of beers will include those with extreme hop flavours or those fermented with fruit or other ingredients including herbs, spices and botanicals. “This expansion works well for us,” says Adrian, “it’ll allow us to express ourselves with new recipes – and even the odd traditional medieval one! – without moving Castle Rock away from the core in which we pride ourselves. This is the brewing of high quality, consistent, popular and very suppable beers.”

Castle Rock first brewed in 1998. “In many ways it’s a step forwards by taking a step backwards,” says managing director, Colin Wilde. “And it’ll mean we can brew some very big flavourful and high impact beers out of a very small vessel. There’s no wonder our brewery team have already given the re-commissioned tank a pet name ‘The Tardis’.