With so much talk about
carbon footprint and the recent podcast in the guardian on the
carbon footprint of everything, I found the thought of visiting the manufacturer of UK's first
carbon neutral beer really exciting. So I decided to explore the great and much talked about hospitality of
Adnams Brewery located in Southwold, Suffolk, England.
Our tour guide Fergus Fitzgerald, who is also the head brewer, was very pleasant and welcoming, just as the management had been by letting us use their Swan Hotel facilities for our business meeting FOC in addition to the free tour and complimentary lunch.
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| A selection of ingredients and beers |
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| Inside the fermentation tank |
Walking us about the brewery, it was fun to touch and taste the ingredients that go into the beer itself and have them located next to the finished product. Some were edible, but we were warned against tasting some others unless we wanted to carry the memory for many days to come. At some point we were even able to peep into the fermentation tank to watch the process live. From the aroma of the surrounding you wondered if you could get drunk by just being here a bit longer. So my natural question to the brewer was whether he ever went pubbing. Carbon neutrality is achieved through heat recovery, water recycling and carbon offsetting with reliable organisations. The biggest discovery for me was that some of the beers (cask beers) are not vegetarian as some part of fish is used for their production. The final point of the tour was obviously the filling station where we watched some able-bodied men fill up the barrels with this pleasantly intoxicating liquid for final transportation. We didn't taste the beer!
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| A tradition I developed ages ago |
Southwold itself is a bustling little town especially being a sea resort. After the meeting I could not resist the temptation of dipping my legs in the sea- a tradition I developed ages ago irrespective of the season and location. The water was warm and pleasant but there was just one swimmer and myself. The rest of the tourists were either whiling away in the sand or window shopping in Southwold Pier. Lots of hilarious entertainment especially the one that involved hitting some dolls on the head. Unfortunately my colleague could not get the telescope to work and had to forfeit his hard earned £1!
Waking up this morning to hear and read in the
Lowestoft Journal and on
BBC that a World War II mine had just exploded a few metres from where I had been threading the previous day was a bit of a shock. The report said a swimmer had noticed something strange and went to report to the authorities. Could that have been my co-swimmer?
Image via Wikipedia
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