BEERWOLF - Wolverhampton Campaign for Real Ale

A Visit to Salopian Brewery
A grand autumnal day out was had by all who
came along to Shrewsbury for a tour of the
Salopian brewery. A short bus ride from the
town centre and we were at the brewery and
seated in their “hospitality suite”- a room with
a bar and a variety of comfortable seating
including a rocking chair! Jake Douglas, Sales
Manager for Salopian introduced himself
and talked about his role at the brewery. Jake
previously worked for Oakham brewery but
has settled happily in to his role at Salopian.
The brewery is owned by Wilf and Mark and
they are currently brewing at capacity so may
need to move to a new site in the future. The
brewery have established a reputation worth
holding on to, hence they take cleaning very
seriously. “Why bother if you have a dirty
plant? A reputation is very easy to lose but
very hard to build” as Jake put it!
It was time for our tour of the site that used
to be a dairy, similar to other breweries for
the most part but Salopian had a feature I’d
not seen before, a hoptea tank. Because hops
are more soluble in water than in wort, they
impart more hop flavour with less of the
bitterness. This is added to the wort for the
last two minutes of the boil. Salopian get their
yeast from Crouch Vale, a brewery that Jake
admires for their excellent working ethos and
he also loves their very expressive beers. The
yeast can become less active over time so
they keep re-evolving the strain to eventually
create a “Salopian” strain.
The Salopian range is well loved with the
3.8% Shropshire Gold winning the Bitter
category in the National Champion Beer of
Britain competition run by CAMRA. This
ale had also previously won in the golden ale
category before it was recategorised as bitter,
a move that Jake agrees with as he says the ale
is less citrussy than other golden ales. A lively
debate was had amongst our group regarding
16
this! Sales have increased since the award so
let this be inspiration to other brewers!
Jake challenged the Salopian team to brew
a sessionable hoppy ale in the style of Dark
Star Hop Head (one of his favourites). Months
of trials resulted in Oracle, at 4% and a very
drinkable ale. As we are talking hops, I have
to mention Hop Twister, the premium beer that
they brew with the big “C” hops: Centennial,
Citra and Cascade. Hoppy beers are in favour
at the moment and just like grapes in the wine
industry, new world hops from New Zealand
and beyond are proving to be the more popular
varieties for real ale brewers.
Lemon Dream is
Salopian’s speciality
beer with its balanced
lemony taste. Finally,
to complement the
range of Salopian beers
is Golden Thread,
a homage to Hopback
Summer Lightning.
The Hoptea “Middle class St*lla”
Tank
as Jake calls it but a much
appreciated ale by those in the industry.
Coming up with names for beers can be
tricky and Salopian try to have a theme for
their seasonal ales such as their Blackwater
Brewery ales that were musically themed
last year. This year, the theme is art such as
Cubism, a tasty blackcurranty ale. Monthly
specials are an interesting addition to a
and provide opportunity for the brewer to
experiment with flavour & styles. This works
for Salopian and if the beer proves popular, it
will be back as a more permanent addition to
their range. Kashmir is a fine example of this.
Jake explained that differing environmental
conditions that have an effect on the growth of
crops lead to subtle variations to the flavour