Touring Redchurch Brewery in Harlow

Dann and I have been looking to do more local events in our town and came across the Redchurch Brewery, which offer monthly beer tasting and tours! Dann was very excited to try out new beers and had no idea that they did tours, so we eagerly waited for the date to come up. The Redchurch Brewery is a small local, brewery that brews a bunch of beers in massive vats. We got the chance to sample five different beers, all of which were made there.

The afternoon at Redchurch Brewery started off with a beer of course – their premium in-house beer. Everybody was given a half-pint of the ‘Redchurch premium lager’ while we were talked through the different parts of the tour. The tour kicked off with an explaination of the brewing process and what goes into making different beers and alcoholic drinks, as well as a history of the brewery itself and how it has changed owners over the years. We all got the chance to smell a selection of different hops and ingredients, and there was some really interesting charts that showed how different ingredients create different types of beer.

In addition to beers that they brew for themselves, the team also explained some of the contract work that they do – and that they have done previously – telling us about two different companies that they currently make different beers for.

After this we went for a tour of the brewery itself, where the team explained the processes and uses of the different equipment that they had on site, as well as explaining the capacity of the tanks and how long the beer brewing processes takes. It was fascinating to see the different cleaning and transfer methods that they used, and the strict rota that they followed in order to make the most of their equipment and time. This also included a walk through their storage facilities, where we got to see the stored product that they had, as well as some of the things they had ready to ship out to customers.

Once we were done with the brewer tour we returned to the brewery bar where we had an additional four beer samples and had a question and answer session split around a brief discussion on each of the different beers. The tour naturally segued into the bar’s normal opening hour, and we stayed around, talking to the staff and learning more about the beers that they make there as well as the snacks they carry. Loic, who was manning the bar throughout the tour, was also a member of the brewing team and passionately explained the beers that he had developed himself in his role.

Dann was really happy with the tour experience and really enjoyed the variety of beers they had there, especially the deeper, earthier tones of the Old Kentucky; Although he also quite enjoyed the ‘modern’ Laine-brand beer that the brewery had on tap — which wasn’t to the liking of some of the older attendees.

The Redchurch Brewery tour was an absolutely amazing experience, we really enjoyed how informative it was, and — have never done one of these before — we’d definitely considering doing another brewery tour in future after how good this one was. It’s not very often that you get to both learn and drink beer at the same time.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!