The Bridge (Holmbridge) Brewery
Bridge Blonde, English Pale Ale, American Pale, Vanilla Stout, New Zealand Pale Ale
The brewery at The Bridge (Holmbridge) is a newly added feature of the pub, and after four months into brewing, well over twenty batches of beer, nearly 13,000 pints and one heck of an open day, the dust has finally starting to settle at The Bridge Brewery. The resident and head brewer Richard Thomas said ‘The Brewery is now settling down into good steady production, hurdles have been jumped, creases have been ironed out and the response and feedback from both loyal regulars and first time visitors has been fantastic. The brewery open day was a huge success and there is already demand for another date for the unfortunate few people who couldn’t make it, and also those who would just like to come again’.
Five beers have been produced so far including the core range of Blonde 3.8% abv – English pale ale, Bitter 4% - traditional Amber bitter and American Pale 4% - the Brewery’s take on an APA (American Pale Ale) but without the high ABV that regularly comes with American beers. Additionally to these, two slightly more specialist beers have been made, the Vanilla Stout 5.2% as promised and the NZPA (New Zealand Pale Ale) Double Hop 5.9% which was a special beer produced just for the open day. ‘Looking at a few folks I knew on their way home from the open day I think they enjoyed that one a bit too much of you know what I mean’ chuckled Richard reflecting back on the open day.
So what should we all be looking out for in the Future?
Richard let us in to a few secrets about what’s coming up next in the brewery. ‘I can’t ignore the fact that our pub is a destination venue and a lot of people have to drive to us. To help cater for these unfortunate few I am currently in the process of designing a beer that should come in at 1 unit of alcohol per pint, it will be around 2%abv. The aim is to supply a high quality beer with equal levels of flavour or body as our other beers, which customers may have a little more confidence in to try without going over the drink drive limit’.
Also coming soon will be a ruby red ale, malt dominated with at least 5 different malts, lightly hopped with English hops.
We hope to see you soon at the bar!