![]() ![]() Characteristic of Peter Austin brewing systems are the brick brew kettles with copper domes (see picture above) and of course the open fermenters, and the use of Ringwood yeast. Pugsley continued setting up Austin-style systems around the world, and launched Pugsley Brewing International, with the equipment prepared in the UK and then shipped to wherever the new brewery would be built, and then put together by Pugsley. Geary’s was New England’s first microbrewery and Pugsley installed a Peter Austin brewhouse and helped design its first beer. They first helped set up Geary’s in 1983 - at that time, there were only 13 microbreweries in the United States, almost all of them in the Western US. It was through this venture that Pugsley found himself in the USA. With the success of the Ringwood microbrewery, Austin and Pugsley consulted on setting up new breweries all over the world, including places as far afield as Nigeria, China and Russia. It also seals in the beer with a thick krausen crust, further protecting it until, after about a week, it can be racked from the bottom. Ringwood yeast quickly starts working its way through the wort sugars and hence out-competes unwanted air-borne yeasts. Open fermentation requires careful hygiene control due to the exposure to wild yeasts and bacteria in the air. However the yeast’s flocculent nature means it often goes dormant before the wort is fully fermented and thus requires rousing either with a paddle (which is easy to do with an open fermenter) or via pumps and shower heads. ![]() Ales fermented in this manner gain greater flavour character from the yeast than those sealed into cylindroconical fermenters, often under pressure. Like many traditional Yorkshire yeast strains it evolved to ferment in open vessels-the Yorkshire square being one famous example of an open fermentation vessel. ![]() Now known as Ringwood yeast, it’s a top-fermenting yeast consisting of two distinct strains: one fast to start fermenting, the other quick to flocculate (drop out of suspension in the wort yielding a clear “bright” beer). It was one of the earliest UK microwbreweries and its staple beer soon became Old Thumper, a pale ale, still popular to this day.Īustin relied on a yeast strain he’d brought with him from the brewery in Hull, which in turn had come originally from a brewery in Halifax. ![]() After graduating with a degree in biochemistry, and with no clear idea of a career, he began working with Peter Austin who had brewed at the North Country brewery in Hull for decades, before retiring and opening his own Ringwood Brewery in Hampshire in 1978. Particularly influential in New England and the Northeast has been UK ex-pat and University of Manchester graduate Alan Pugsley. In this article, we will relate a very cursory history of how many early USA microbreweries and brewpubs looked to the UK to get their start, of our lasting influence on their micro breweries, brewing techniques, and beer styles and then a little about the breweries we got to visit and some of the beers we tasted (all in the name of research, of course, as we’re keen homebrewers ourselves). However, on a recent graduation-related trip to the USA, the better half and myself found that particularly in the Northeastern US, this is far from the whole story: in fact it’s somewhat backwards. The story of US micro brewing or craft breweries usually goes something like this: homebrewing became legal in 1978 and within a few years, US homebrewers started opening their microbreweries and it exploded from there, with their beer styles eventually crossing the Atlantic and strongly influencing the latest generations of microbreweries starting up here. – ‘Beers ‘R US’ / by Claudia Asch and James MarshĪ taster of the Northeast/New England’s beer offerings ![]()
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