{"id":2989,"date":"2022-09-27T16:17:52","date_gmt":"2022-09-27T16:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=2989"},"modified":"2022-09-27T16:17:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T16:17:53","slug":"vale-the-brill-brewery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2022\/09\/27\/vale-the-brill-brewery\/","title":{"rendered":"Vale \u2013 the Brill brewery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you went to this year\u2019s Great British Beer Festival then there is a good chance you will have spotted Vale, who were sharing a brewery bar with a few others, including Five Points. Vale might not be familiar to some but the brewery has been around since 1995. This predates the introduction of Small Brewers Relief, the measure that really kicked off the explosion of small breweries in 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The brewery is based just outside Brill in Buckinghamshire. The hilltop village has gained fame for reputedly being the place on which Tolkien based Bree in Lord of the Rings. Vale has had a number of owners over the years and is currently it is owned by brothers Jimmy and Joe Brouder, who purchased the brewery from Phil and Martin Stephens in 2021. The latter pair wanted to retire but also wanted to ensure they sold to someone who would keep the brewery going and who loved cask ale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jimmy has a background in the industry, having worked for Carlsberg and Timothy Taylor\u2019s. Joe knows his way around a brewery too. He was involved in setting up a recruitment agency that specialises in finding people who understand the business. Joe explained, \u201cI worked with a number of breweries including Salopian and, latterly, Vale. It was then that we decided to take the plunge<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Joe Brouder<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The brewery has a twenty barrel brew length and employs ten people of whom two are in the brewery, two in the office, two on the dray and three \u2018on the road\u2019. It\u2019s not the most accessible brewery; there is a bus once a day but Brill is about a mile away and, fortunately, Vale have a large car park.
Brewing takes place three times a week and all of their beer undergoes secondary fermentation. Their beer used to be bottled at Staffordshire Bottlers but they decided to bring that work in house \u2018for better control and sustainability<\/em>\u2019. At the moment they are hand bottling but the owners are not afraid of investment. Joe said, \u201cWe have spent a bit already such as with SALSA accreditation (see note) and in due course we might consider a pub<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vale supplies a lot of rural pubs, which brings its own challenges, but they remain committed to cask beer. Joe gave his thoughts on this: \u201cI think we are in for a resurgence of cask. However, ensuring the quality is an issue but you can\u2019t have proper cask at home and, when served properly, it\u2019s the best product in the pub<\/em>.\u201d I think we can all drink to that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on the brewery, its taproom, brewery visits and their occasional open days, go here<\/a>.
Christine Cryne<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: SALSA (Small and Local Supplier Approval) is a food safety certification scheme designed for smaller food producers and suppliers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you went to this year\u2019s Great British Beer Festival then there is a good chance you will have spotted Vale, who were sharing a brewery bar with a few… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brewery-visit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2991,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2989\/revisions\/2991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}