Brightlingsea: Brewery rolls out the barrel

From the archive, first published Friday 1st Jun 2007.

Susie and Will Jenkins are literally rolling out the barrels this week.

Two, to be precise - containing the first batch of beer produced from their new brewery business.

The Wonky Dog Brewery is the latest micro brewery to be set up in the riverside town of Brightlingsea and follows on from the very successful set-up at the Railway Tavern in Station Road.

The Tavern was where Susie helped landlord David English achieve his reputation as a master brewer and when David decided to increase his productivity from a two to a four-barrel plant, Susie jumped at the chance of taking ownership of his old equipment.

That was just two months ago and, after transforming the family garage in Wellington Street into a brewery, the public can now sample the fruits of their labours at the Railway Tavern and this week's Colchester Beer Festival.

Susie said: "We're paying David back in beer, so he's got the first one. The other one is at the Colchester Beer Festival which, hopefully, will go down well.

"They really know their beer so if we can win them over this week that would be fantastic."

Wishing to keep the whole process traditional, Susie and Will have insisted in using wooden barrels instead of the normal metal ones.

Unfortunately this posed a bit of a problem because there are only five coopers left in the country, but that didn't stop the couple tracking one down in Devizes, Wiltshire.

Will added: "He primarily works for the Wadworth Brewery but he's made us 16, which is enough to keep us going at full capacity. They are supposed to be better for the beer and last for years.

"We are going to name each of them after a famous dog and they will be branded, so when they are finished with, they can be returned to us."

The first beer off the mini-production line is called Sunbeam, a golden ale produced especially for the summer drinking market.

Will said: "It's a fairly recent type of beer that was developed with the intention of getting lager drinkers back into real ale. It's quite similar to IPA and it really is a summer drink. We did five different recipes for it and then got our friends round to try it out and tell us which one they thought was best.

"We wanted to get ourselves established with this one first, but our plan is to do a darker ale for the winter."

With two children and two old dogs, which incidentally is where the name of the brewery comes from, Will and Susie are busy enough, but they have had plenty of support from their neighbours and the local community to get their business up and running.

Will said: "It's very exciting at the moment and obviously we have big plans for the brewery but we will just have to wait and see how it goes."

With the Tavern already winning awards, including this year's Champion Beer of Essex for its Bladderwack Stout, the Wonky Dog has an already well-established tradition to live up to, but it's one they are looking forward to matching.