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Breweries — it’s beer and it’s brewed here

It’s moor beer in the West Country as Dunkery Ales set up shop on Exmoor…
The last time there was a brewery up on Exmoor was in 1940, when the family firm of Crocombe & Son finally shut their doors at Parracombe. They had been brewing since the 1870s and owned 16 tied pubs, but when the head of the family died the business ground to a halt. True, there are several breweries on the fringe of the Park, such as Cotleigh and Exmoor in Wiveliscombe and Barum in Barnstaple, but since 1940 there has been nowhere on the moor where good local beer has been brewed. Until now, that is. Over in Exford, in the centre of staghunting country, Jim Winzer’s newly operational Dunkery Ales (www.dunkeryales.co.uk) can claim to be brewing at the youngest and longest-established current brewery on the moor at the moment.

The brewery is based in a former cattle shed at Edgcott Farm at the top of Exford, within sound of the music of the Devon & Somerset Staghounds’ kennels. Winzer, along with business partners Linley Williams (who farms at Edgcott) and wife Elke, started the business in the autumn of 2006 after a couple of years of planning and organisation.

Jim Winzer: back to the farm of his ancestors to brew

‘I saw a Countryfile TV programme when they visiting somewhere in the Western Isles,’ says Winzer, who was born near Dulverton and whose great-great grandmother used to own the farm at where he now brews. ‘A micro-brewery had been started out there and I thought what a good idea. I had only done a bit of home-brewing before and so I researched it and ended up meeting Graham Moss of Burnley-based Mossbrew. He is a master brewer who runs a firm that designs small breweries. I went on a course and then he came down and commissioned the first brew.’

Originally, Winzer planned to set up the brewery at the Porlock guest-house that he and his wife run, but when that fell through, Lynley Williams heard about it and became interested. ‘He told me that he had this old building,’ recalls Winzer, ‘and so away we went.’

First of all, there was a lot of work to be done. Winzer shows me pictures of the barn before it was renovated. It looks pretty ramshackle with exposed beams, piled up pheasant feeders in the corners, cattle stalls, and straw and dung strewn over the concrete floor. Now, the roof has been repaired, an extra compartment put in where the brewing equipment is house and the concrete floor taken away — this provided a visual bonus as it unveiled the original patterned floor where you can still see the marks from horses’ hoofs.

As for the brewing equipment Dunkery’s beers are produced on a stainless steel 2.5-barrel outfit which can do up to 90 gallons of beer at any one time (a barrel in brewing terms = 36 gallons). ‘We could have gone for a brewkit twice the size,’ muses Winzer, ‘but in the end plumped for this one. We can always upgrade.’

There is a mash tun, where crushed malted barley is ‘mashed’ or soaked in warm water to produce a sugar-rich solution called the wort — water comes from a spring above the village. The barley strain that Winzer uses is called Maris Otter and is regarded as the Rolls-Royce of barley. It comes from the old- family-owned maltings of Tuckers in Newton Abbot. ‘They’re a proper old-fashioned firm,’ says Winzer, ‘I have had a lot of help from them. I only order a small amount of malt, but they are not phased by that.’

The wort is then pumped over to the brewing kettle, or copper, and boiled with hops, which come from Herefordshire hop merchants Charles Farum — Winzer uses a variety called Challenger, which helps to give a fragrant fruitiness and appetising bitterness to the beer. The liquid is cooled and goes into a fermenting vessel where yeast is added to kick off the process that changes the sugars in the solution into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This process continues for four days before it is cooled down for another two and then racked into casks. Next stop the pub cellar and eventually the eager customer.

At the moment, Dunkery Ales only have one beer in their portfolio. This is the 4% session bitter Dunkery Ale, which has already won an award at the CAMRA Somerset beer festival held at Minehead in September 2006. ‘Our beer is an original recipe,’ says Winzer, ‘I didn’t have a model of a beer on which I wanted to base it on. The first brew we did we felt was too dark and bitter and we weren’t pleased with it, so we toned down the bitterness and dark malts.’

I tried the beer at the brewery. It is a rich chestnut brown colour with dark-orange highlights. On the nose there are hints of grainy malt and a whisper of citrus fruit. The palate is full-bodied, passing through levels of biscuity malt and citrus fruit before finishing with a satisfying bitterness that creeps up on the drinker. ‘It’s what beer should be,’ I was told by one fan.

Dunkery Ales, after all the work was done

Over at the Culbone Stables Inn, where it is a regular, landlord Simon David tells me, ‘people like the beer very much. Locals like the Dunkery image of the beer and visitors are interested when they are told it comes from Exford. After they finish their first pint they always ask for another one, which is always a sign of success.’ David, whose father is local butcher Gerald, also says that Dunkery Ale is added to the pub’s steak and ale pie and sausages.

As for the future, Jim Winzer wants to stick with one beer for the moment. Don’t expect a confusing range of guest beers with colourful names and pump-clips. ‘I want to get it right,’ he tells me, ‘but it has got popular very fast. It’s possible that I might produce a stronger beer in 2007 but I don’t have any plans for bottles.’

As for distribution, he aims to keep the beer local and only sells within a 20-mile radius of the brewery to pubs such as the Culbone Stables Inn and the White Horse at Exford. So if you want to try a pint of Dunkery Ale then you’ll have to visit the moor and its pubs. What a hardship. Not.
Printed in Exmoor Magazine spring 2007

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