Crusader by Wharfe Bank,
Festival special ale 2014 This year marks the 40th birthday of Leeds CAMRA. The first meeting, in 1974, took place at the Central on Wellington Street, Leeds. Legend has it that 100 people turned up to that first meeting… To celebrate we joined forces with the Wharfe Bank Brewery to create an extra special beer, a 4.0% ruby beer for our ruby celebration. February may have started out bright and sunny but it was still cold and we were all feeling the chill as we gathered at the Wharfe Bank Brewery, in Pool-in-Wharfedale. Four intrepid young (at heart) Leeds CAMRA members, Young Members Secretary Mike Hampshire, Hannah Clarke, regular home-brewer Mathew Pullin and I met our host and mentor, Steve Crump. He is the new brewer at Wharfe Bank, a qualified microbiologist and the brain behind the brewery’s new Firestorm range. Fortunately for us, Steve had the kettle on, the one in question being our mash tun, holding the water needed for the day’s brewing. “We are expecting to get between 34 and 36 barrels out of this today.” Steve sounds like he’s done this before. I’m glad, looking round I wouldn’t know where to start. Turns out we start with the malts. Sacks of the grain are carefully checked and then lined up
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next to the hopper. Mike and Mathew start gleefully smelling malts and comparing the colours as Hannah looks on bemused. Under Steve’s direction we load up the hopper. “The numbers on the sacks indicate the colour” Steve informs us,” the higher the number, the darker the malt”. Our ruby ale needs a mixture of light and dark to produce the characteristic red colouring. Many hands make light work and the hopper is loaded up and we are off back to check on the mash tun. Steve is all busyness as hoses are connected and digital gauges are checked. Soon the tun is filling up with water and the malts are being drawn from the hopper into the tun. Mathew is pressed into spade duty with Steve overseeing. “You need to keep a careful eye at this point” he says, gesturing to the mixture as Mathew keeps it moving with his large plastic spade, “what you are after should look like porridge. If it’s not mixed correctly the mash is too dry and the flavours are not extracted properly. ” I don’t know about porridge but the mixture looks as wet as