Looking good

So the logo for Welbeck Abbey Brewery have been finalised! It's on the right of this page.
I shall explain where all the shapes and colours come from...

The outline shape. This is from the top of a beautiful early 19th century building in the village called 'The Winnings' (see the piccy)

The original badge of the 'Bentinck' family who own Welbeck was two arms holding feathers, resting in a coronet - which is basically a minor-league version of a crown. There's a lovely gate into the walled garden which shows this incredibly well. So the feathers are the official Welbeck branding, and I've added the 'Ducal Coronet' to complete the look.

The 'W' at the top stands for Welbeck (duh) but I've put it there because the 6th duke of Portland has a fancy 'P' at the top of lots of the buildings.

The colour of the estate is a deep holly green so that's why the background is green, and the actual pump clip will be a shield shape with this in the top.

Tadaa! Let me know what you think.

Doors and floors

So the brewery building is almost ready. I went to have another look today and the flooring people are on site preparing the concrete floor for its dashing red covering. There's now a second roller shutter door on the building which makes it almost a closable area, just need the small door now. All the walls are up, they're coated in plastic now so that they're protected and very user friendly in an extremely beery environment! The building team are also now building a little office with a big window for me, so hopefully I won't freeze to death in the winter.

Equipment starts to go in next week, and after much hunting I've finally bought a tank to fill casks from hooray! That means we've got almost all the equipment we need for a working brewery - just the last bits to get and fairly sharpish too.

This week I'm going to start ringing pubs and telling them that the Welbeck Abbey Brewery will be up and running in three weeks, which means beer will be available to buy at the start of May. This is the hard but exciting bit, and I'm getting a van this week so that I can actually deliver the beer!

The logo is currently being designed and should be ready tomorrow, I'll share that as soon as it's ready. Just looking forward to seeing the first pump clip this week when I think it will all become a bit more scary and real.

Anyhow, here are a few pictures for you to have a look at....


(Above) The stairs have arrived! I can actually get up to the mezzanine floor now. This will be where the malted barley and hops will be stored.

(Right)This is a bit of a wonky picture of the new roller shutter door on the brewhouse side of the building. The blue machine thingy at the back is an industrial sized hoover which they were using to clean the floor ready for the resin coating.









(Left) This is just a chap preparing the floor in the fermenting room. All the blue plastic will come off and reveal some super shiny plastic walls.





(Right) The inside of the cold store. Bit boring, but soon it will be much more exciting, filled with lovely beer, yippee!

Two weeks to go

It's only two weeks to go until the Welbeck Abbey Brewery equiment is installed, which means the day that our new beer reaches you is getting very close indeed!

In the middle of The Welbeck Abbey Estate we are setting up a traditional microbrewery - read the info on the right bar to find out a little about your new local brewery. The building project started in the winter, and after a few months of dealing with rather a lot of snow and a rotten roof, it’s almost complete.

Here are a few pictures of the building now it’s recognisable!

There are two halves to the brewery, at the back of one is the cold store where all our beer will be stored in casks until we whisk it off to your pub in our van. This picture shows the cold store from the front, my office will be in the front space and we’ll use that big area for all the deliveries.

The other half is the brew house and conditioning tanks where we’ll be making the beer and putting it in to casks. You can see the fermenting room taking shape here, and the mezzanine floor which we’ll use to store our hops and malt.

This is the view from the back of the brewery looking out. You can see the floor of the mezzanine has been built, and the hand rail has been put on.

Lots more building to do, and all the equipment to put in. Keep an eye on the Facebook site for updates.