What do you get if you put a gardener, an electrician and an accountant in a brewery? It sounds like the start of a joke, but the punchline is actually ‘really good craft ales’. It’s been nearly 10 years since Steve Mansley, James Berrow and Lesley Foulkes made the leap from home brewing to establishing Langham Brewery, and in that time they’ve gone from strength to strength, winning more than 15 awards on the way – and naturally, it all started with a chat over a pint.
In 2003, armed with nothing but a van and a love of real ale, Steve, James and Lesley drove around the countryside looking for their perfect site – sadly Titty Hill Brewery, with all its wonderful beer-naming opportunities, was never meant to be. But the Cowdray Estate agreed on a handshake to refurbish the 18th century granary barn that now houses Langham Brewery, and with a little help from their friends and brewery plant from Wickwar Brewery in Gloucestershire, the plan began to take shape. In 2005 the first beers were brewed and sold – but it wasn’t all plain sailing to get there.
“It was a very steep learning curve from home brewing,” Lesley recalls. “At the beginning we were producing ales that were quite acceptable, they were tasty but sometimes lacked consistency.” The answer was to take on a brewery consultant who spent a year helping the small team develop proper processes and cleaning regimes. The second hand plant was thoroughly refurbished and upgraded, wooden lids were replaced with stainless steel and venting pipes were repositioned to prevent wild yeast from making its way into the brewery. Langham began brewing a fermenter’s worth (around 35 firkins, or 1,432 litres) of beer each fortnight. Now they brew three to four times a week and produce around 360,000 litres of ale every year.
Has all the hard work been worth it? “Beer is wonderfully sociable, inclusive and community-oriented,” says Lesley. “It’s the biggest buzz to produce something people enjoy. To go into a pub and see someone enjoying something produced with your efforts is amazing.” She also loves the tradition around real ale, something Langham is keen to promote. The brewery uses only leaf hops, procures its malt from one of just three remaining floor maltsters in the UK, and cask-conditions its beer to keep traditional methods alive. It also hosts an annual conker competition, aiming to preserve and protect a very British sport, and which now attracts 80 players and several hundred spectators.
Micro-breweries have popped up all over the UK in recent years and craft ales have never been more popular. Lesley attributes part of this to the hard work of CAMRA, and partly to what she describes as a local groundswell, but she’s convinced it’s not just a passing fad. “A brewery is a tangible, visible centre of production, and there’s a sense of pride in what is being produced,” she explains. “Having so many breweries out there is a challenge, but it raises the bar and encourages us to keep up the quality and the level of interest. There is such an infinite variety of things you can do with an ale, different hops, permutations, styles and ABVs. You can be innovatively restless, come up with things all the time.”
So what is Langham Brewery coming up with? After introducing two new beers in 2014, including Saison which won Local Beer of the Festival at Western Sussex CAMRA, there’s plenty to look forward to in 2015. With the brewery now running six fermenters (up from its original four), they will be looking to take on more business – perhaps work with new pub companies and push a little further afield. In addition, as they prepare to celebrate a decade of brewing, Langham will be travelling to Norwich in September to represent Sussex at a festival celebrating 50 years of Maris Otter malting barley. There may even been a new beer for the occasion ...
At the heart of Langham Brewery, though, is the local community. Whether it’s brewery tours, conker competitions or sitting on the barrels with candles on the fermenters listening to live music, there’s always something going on that people can get involved with – in fact this Saturday, 24th January, will see the next Live at Langhams event, with five music acts, chilli, wine, cider, and of course, real ale on offer. It’s the perfect time to try something different: as Lesley notes, whether you’re into a deep, dark Baltic porter, a hoppy American pale ale or a classic blonde beer, there’s a Langham ale for almost every palate.
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