We visit the Stonehouse Brewery in Oswestry, for our: Love Your Brewery feature. They have a brewery, distillery, bar, eating area, and nice grounds too.
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00:00G'day, my name's Shane Parr, I'm one of the directors here at Stonehouse Brewery.
00:07We started back March 2007, in fact on the 31st, it's exactly 18 years since we did our
00:14first brew of Station Bitter, so we're doing a few things to celebrate that.
00:19We initially started in an old chicken shed up at the top of the property there, but we've
00:24grown and expanded, built this building in 2013, and it had a bar added onto it and that's
00:33grown for us as well, and there's a few other things we're doing including the distillery
00:37we put in last year.
00:40Yeah, so you've gone into distilling, so you're going to have a Stonehouse Whiskey, is that
00:47the plan?
00:48Yeah, so we're doing gins, vodka and whiskey as well.
00:53Some of it, we're actually distilling the whiskey today.
00:58What we do when we make a whiskey, we first make a beer at about 8% ABV, we then put that
01:05in the still, heat it up gently, and the alcohols come off at different temperatures, so first
01:10you'll get your ethanol, then your methanol, then the ethanol, which is the stuff we want
01:14that we want to drink eventually.
01:18We'll then cut that back to 65%, 64% ABV, and put it into wooden casks, and it has to
01:24spend at least 3 years in a wooden cask before it can be whiskey.
01:28Obviously we can't call it scotch because we're south of the border here, and there's
01:32still some rules we have to stick to, but you've got to have that time in the wooden
01:36cask.
01:37Try to be a bit adventurous with it as well, so not just putting it all in ex-bourbon casks,
01:42we'll then finish some of them in some more interesting ones, so we've got a release out
01:47at the moment, it was finished in a Sautern cask, a French dessert wine, another one in
01:53a port finish cask, and the other we've got at the moment spent its entire life in an
01:59Australian wine cask.
02:00There's a few other interesting ones coming up too, which we'll hopefully release.
02:03So this Shane is where it's stored then, for how long was it you said?
02:07Three years minimum, but it will improve with age, so the ones we've been releasing tend
02:13to be five years old, but of course we've also got some we're holding back a lot longer,
02:17so hopefully one day we'll have an eight-year-old, a ten-year-old, a twelve-year-old, and so
02:21on.
02:22These different casks, most of them are ex-bourbon casks, and that's the same for a lot of the
02:28Scottish whiskey industry, there's usually a glut of ex-bourbon casks, although they're
02:33hard to get hold of these days, and they add a lot of great flavour to whiskey, so most
02:39whiskeys you have will be ex-bourbon.
02:41And then what some might do is finish them, and other ones, say, some of these sherry
02:45casks here, some of our Aussie wine casks, I've got a Marsala cask, Tawny Port, Sautern,
02:55we've even got an ex-maple syrup cask here, so we're just experimenting with that, and
03:00we'll see what it comes out like.
03:01But we're tending to do with the finishers just one single cask a bouche, and releasing
03:07it as a single cask, so there'll tend to be 300 to 350 bottles of it when we release
03:12it.
03:13So one of these will hold about 350 bottles?
03:16Well they hold 200, when they're filled, roughly 200 litres of new-made spirit, but that goes
03:23in at about, like I said earlier, 63 to 65% ABV, by the time that has aged a bit, it loses
03:32a bit of ABV, but you're still going to cut it back to bottling strength, so that's why
03:36you'll end up with 300.
03:38And Station Bitter, you said that was one of the first ones there, it's award-winning?
03:41Yeah, so the Station Bitter actually won the CBER, which is our trade body, National Award
03:49for Standard Bitters, got the gold in 2013, and we just found out last week it got the
03:55National Silver, so the same award but silver, in the same competition this year for 2025,
04:03and that's great, I mean I don't think there'll be many beers that can say it's had that sort
04:07of National Award a couple of times, and that's really good for us, it's been a staple, it's
04:12been 70% of what we brew and make since we started, it's been the backbone of this business
04:20and kept us going.
04:22It's 3.9%, so what people would consider a session beer, and not too dark, not too light,
04:30nice and balanced, a little bit of hoppiness there, but also, as I said, balanced with
04:34that malt flavour, so as we were growing, and there were a lot more breweries starting
04:39up, as pubs were having four or five handpulls on their bar, and they were chopping and changing
04:44a few, they still wanted a nice session beer, and Station was always perfect for that, so
04:50it's been a great thing for us.
04:51Yeah, and like you say, you've expanded, you've got quite a nice section here for people to
04:56come and eat and drink, and it's from Wednesday onwards in the week, you're open for that,
05:00and kind of grilled kind of food, barbecue style food?
05:02Yeah, that's it, we're open six days a week anyway, because obviously we're here brewing,
05:09but the food side of the business and the bar, from Wednesday through to Sunday, drinks
05:15obviously, and we've got a nice barbecue style restaurant, sort of Aussie-American style
05:22food, we've got a smoker there, so we'll smoke brisket and pull pork, and they'll be based
05:30around that, pizzas, burgers, platters, that sort of thing, and it's been great for us,
05:35particularly, we actually set it up, the restaurant side of the business in 2020, just as COVID
05:41was kicking in, and these days there's a lot more breweries around, so you need to be doing
05:47other things to keep the interest up, and to keep your income going, and so it's been
05:51a great thing for us, and the best part about it is, we're very lucky, Touchwood, we've
05:56got a great team, great staff here, and that's the thing, when you're in hospitality, having
06:01the right people is everything.
06:05So Kev, what have we got brewing at the minute?
06:07So we've actually got Station Bitter brewing today, so...
06:12And which is a personal favourite for you out of all the ones you do?
06:17I've got to say, at the moment, it's probably Flipside, that's one of the first beers I brewed
06:22when I started here, so it's one of the new beers we've got.
06:25You've kind of created one.
06:26Yeah, a hoppy pale orange.
06:27Cool.
06:28So what's, you know, if you were going to describe the taste of that, how would you
06:32do that as a brewer?
06:33Have you got poetic words?
06:35Yeah, so, I mean, it's basically a modern pale ale, so, nice good bit of malt balance,
06:40but it's got hops in there to really give you flavour, so you've got a nice sort of
06:44citrus-y, tropical fruit flavours in there.
06:46Yeah.
06:47And I guess that works well as a summer drink?
06:49That sounds like a nice...
06:50Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
06:51Absolutely, yeah.
06:52Cool.
06:53All rounder, but yeah, really comes out in the summer, yeah.
06:54And what's happening at the minute then?
06:55What's going on here?
06:56So at the moment we're sparging, so we've got the Maltic here, which we've soaked in
07:01hot water, which is the sugars you use to get the alcohol in the beer, and we're just
07:06sparging hot water over the top of that.
07:08That just basically flushes through all the sugars, and then because of the temperature
07:13it stops the enzymes in the mash working, that basically keeps the sugars in there that
07:16you want.
07:17Cool.
07:18So this will get some spargy notes, pop them to a pop here, we'll get that heated up, and
07:23then once we've got it to a boil we'll start adding the hops in there.
07:26So you're one of the brewers, what's your name, sir?
07:28Andrew.
07:29How long have you been involved here, Andrew?
07:30About eight months now.
07:31Oh right, okay, fair dose.
07:32And this section here, you do all your own bottling?
07:35Yep.
07:36Cool.
07:37What's your favourite tipple then, that you're doing?
07:40Flipside.
07:41Flipside as Kev then, it's obviously making some waves.
07:44I do enjoy the hazy as well, though.
07:46The hazy?
07:47Yeah.
07:48Oh right, okay.
07:49Every couple of months.
07:50Yeah, yeah.
07:51So does it change on the bar then, it's kind of, you have like specials that come and go
07:54like you say?
07:55Yeah, yeah.
07:56It gets changed quite often.
07:57I guess for the seasons as well, yeah?
07:59Yeah.
08:00So hazy, that's sounding like a summer brew to me.
08:03It's only a round brew.
08:05Yeah, yeah.
08:06But it goes better in the summer.
08:08Yeah, yeah.
08:09Cool.