Fuller's

On Wednesday I took a flexi-day as my missus needed to get some medical imaging performed on her ankle. My office is very generous and offers a flexi time system that requires you to work only 140 hours per four week period with a minimum five hour work day. As I generally accumulate over 200 hours for every four week period, I like to take full advantage of this scheme. Anyhow the medical imaging only took about and hour or so and I was smart enough to book a place on the Fuller's brewery tour at 1300hrs. The Fuller's brewery tour has always been top of the must see things on my list of places to visit whilst in London. As I have been here for about three years and I'm entering the twilight of my UK experience, it seemed like a good opportunity to tick that particular box.
Approaching the brewery, I started to get excited and the steam tower reminded me of the tower from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory from the movie of the same name. I am after all very juvenile at heart!
Anyhow the tour starts at the Mawson Arms, a brilliant little pub on the corner of the Brewery which is frequented by brewery workers and punters waiting for their tours to start. It was in the Mawson Arms that I enjoyed what has to be without a doubt the best pint of London pride I have ever had. That's a pretty big call! The tour itself takes in most of the working brewery which is a refreshing change from most brewery tours which are usually just antique museums consisting of the obsolete brewing kit of yesteryear. The best part however was the end of the tour where you get to go to the token museum in an old cellar. Here the tour guide lets you taste the current Fullers/Gales lineup which included Chiswick, Discovery, Pride, ESB, HSB, Swing Low, Honeydew, Porter and Vintage Ale 2007. I had about a quarter of a pint taster of all of these before having two pints of HSB which has been a long time favourite of mine, even before it entered the Fuller's stable. Speaking of HSB, the recipe has recently been adjusted to remove the caramel colouring agents and sugar that were used when it was brewed out at Gales. This results in a smoother, nuttier beer than it's previous incarnation. Also of interest from a home brew geek perspective is that the Gales beers are still brewed with the Gales proprietary yeast. On the Fuller's side, all brewing is performed via a partigyle style mash and four of Fuller's products; Golden Pride, ESB, London Pride and Chiswick bitter are all brewed with the same grain bill, but the strengths of each beer being determined by blending the first and second runnings accordingly. I pressed the tour guide about the percentages of each type of malt in the grain bill specifically, but it seemed that at this point his brewing knowledge conveniently became somewhat limited!

The gift shop is also a variable treasure trove of collectors stuff. I bought a few bar towels which will at some stage make it back to Australia but most importantly, I picked up a bottle of Fuller's Vintage 1999 for a steal at £5.85. Bargain. This is one 'tick' which I will probably get around to posting about once I drink the bottle. (This will be pretty soon)

After arriving home slightly pissed later that evening, I sat down and enjoyed a Steak and Guinness pie which I had the foresight to dump in the slow cooker earlier that day. You may notice from the picture below that I did not use dumplings this time, but opted for the token pastry lid over the top option. Yes, I know it's a cop out but nice all the same.

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