Water or brewing liquor is fundamental to the quality of beer. The character of water is determined by the combination of minerals that occur in every supply. At WJ King we use local water from the reservoir at Ardingly. An efficient brewery will use 5-7 pints of water for every pint produced.
This is the soul of the beer. The goodness in the malt is extracted in a process called mashing in the Mash Tun. Malted barley is mixed with water using an old fashioned wooden mashing oar. This is finally a rich, sweet brown liquid know as wort. This is transferred to the brewery coppers where it is boiled with hops. Malt give the beer its Hops body, its potential strength and much of its colour and flavour.
Ale did not originally contain Hops in 1484 the Brewers Co. demanded that ale should be brewed using only water, malt and yeast. However thanks to the Belgians we now use the plant Hops. Grown mainly in Kent in the UK we also use hops from far flung places such as Cascade from the US.
This is where the magic begins in brewing. Every brewer has his or her own yeast and WJ King is no exception. Yeast brings spectacular changes to the composition of the wort that enters the fermenting vessel. To maintain cultures of yeast with ideal characteristics we collect the yeast after one fermentation by skimming it off and using it again for the next batch. This skimming process must happen every day even Christmas Day.
