This was another one of my great plans for the weekend away in Stoke-on-Trent, to go on a brewery tour for my favourite UK brewery that is Titanic. It was a slightly odd brewery tour set-up as they claimed that it lasted three hours, offered three free pints and also food, all for £15. That seemed competitive priced to me and I could just see how excited Ross and Liam were when I suggested it. Above is the shop section of the site and I popped into this after the tour, as they opened it specially, to buy bottles of the two Titanic beers that I hadn’t tried before (the Chocolate & Vanilla Stout and the Captain Smiths).
The brewery set-up is at the rear of the site and was a little smaller than I had anticipated, although there are plans for expansion.
There was a upbeat welcome from Lyn, the tour guide, at the beginning when we were told that we could claim our three pints at any time. Realistically though, it was one whilst listening to the introduction, one whilst walking through the brewery and another along with the food at the end. It seemed sufficiently sensible to me, I like an organised plan and especially an organised plan where there’s beer.
There were drawings that were framed on the wall of Titanic’s various pubs and this is the Greyhound that we had visited the previous evening.
The tour was led by Lyn and she comes from a CAMRA background rather than as a brewer, but she led an entertaining tour around the relatively small brewery set-up. She started with an explanation of why the brewery is called Titanic and I have to confess I had only looked that up the previous day as I didn’t know. It’s because in 1985 the Titanic was rediscovered at the bottom of the ocean and the brewers were looking for a name, but the most relevant point is that the captain of the doomed liner was Edward Smith who was born in Hanley, just a short distance away. The founding brothers of the brewery are Keith Bott and Dave Bott, both of whom still work at Titanic today.
Some of the stacks of barley.
And some of the stacks of malt.
Liam, busy learning about how to brew beer. We were told that although millions of pints of beer (currently 4 million, but that’s going up soon) are brewed on-site here every year, there are just five full-time brewers responsible the whole operation.
I was interested to discover that Titanic brew a relatively small number of different beers and over half of their production is Plum Porter. I have to confess that I prefer Cherry Porter, but I’m keen on both in that laid-back and accepting manner of mine…. There are more photos of the brewing operation at https://flickr.com/photos/julianwhite-uk/albums/72177720309137387/.
The food provided was lobby served with bread rolls. I hadn’t heard of this before (the lobby, I know what bread rolls are), but fortunately Liam asked what it was during the tour and it’s effectively a stew and it takes its name from lobscouse. The denizens of Liverpool instead called it scouse and that seems to have defined an entire area. Not wanting to delve too much into a food review, but this was very moreish and when it was announced that there were enough for seconds, I rushed over. The meat was tender and although some locals said their mothers made better lobby when they were children, it was just what I needed.
Most lovely. And the other benefit of all of this is that as Liam was driving he couldn’t have his full intake of alcohol, so I helpfully offered to assist with that situation.
That’s a lot of plum porter. As well as their small estate of pubs, Titanic have also launched bods which are a cafe bar chain and this seems a marvellous idea to reach a new and different audience. More food based and open for breakfast and lunch, they’re making quite an investment into these and hopefully that will pay off. The name comes from their first outlet of this type which was on Bodmin Avenue in Stafford, with the seemingly clever name just being the first half of Bodmin.
The tour guide Lyn (who is also the Deputy Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent) who was great entertainment during the tour and it transpired she knew some people in Norwich CAMRA.
This was a very enjoyable few hours and the whole arrangement was well managed and decent value for money. We could see all of the areas where the brewing took place and there’s a private bar that’s been set up at the brewery replacing the previous need to walk to what was known as Titanic’s brew pub around ten minutes away (which Liam, Ross and I walked to anyway). It was quite a large tour as I think there were 24 of us, but there was always enough beer and food, with plenty of space to see the tour itself. All in all, definitely recommended, and I remain surprised and delighted at Titanic.
