The Tanglefoot brewing process is made up of 7 equally important phases. This includes dry hopping in the final stage - one of the ways Tanglefoot gets its unique Character.

Every pint of Tanglefoot ale begins life at the top of our family brewery

Rising at six each morning, the brewing team ascends to the fourth floor of the brewery building. The malted barley is placed in the mash tun and 'sparged' with hot 'liquor'*. Maintaining the fine tradition of craftsmanship brewing that has been carried forward through the generations at our family Brewery in Blandford St Mary and beginning the transformation of water into the fine Tanglefoot ale.

* (Hot spring water is sprayed onto the malted barley)

1. Malt is germinated barley dried in a kiln. It gives colour and flavour to beer. Malted barley is milled to a course flour called 'grist'.

2. The traditional circular mash tuns made from copper, brass, gun metal and wood are fed with the grist and mixed with hot liquor (the brewer's term for water).

This process is called mashing. The sweet liquid that forms is called wort and this is separated from the spent grains.

3. The wort is then transferred into large cylindrical vessels called coppers, and hops are added before boiling to add bitterness and aroma to the beer. Each different beer has its own special recipe of ingredients.

The wort is boiled until the full flavour of the hops has been released.

4. After cooling, the wort is pumped into fermentation vessels - square shaped for cask-conditioned ales and cylindrical with a conical base for lagers.

5. Yeast is then added and fermentation begins.

The yeast begins to multiply rapidly as it feeds on the sweet wort, converting the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

6. When fermentation is complete the yeast is drawn off for re-use and the beer is allowed to mature in maturation vessels.

The beer is chilled and stored to allow a more rounded flavour to develop.

7. Our ale brands are live products and are racked into casks, where secondary fermentation takes place, in time to deliver you a perfect pint.

Whole hops are added directly to the cask at the end of the brewing process so that all of the essential oils from the hops are extracted into the beer to give a pronounced hoppy aroma.


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