East Anglia is home to some of the best brewers in the whole of Europe.
They practice their art steeped in age-old tradition and surrounded on all sides by endless fields of the world’s best malting barley. These days brewers are keeping abreast of the times and harnessing modern technology to help produce deeply satisfying beers that are taking beer festivals across the country by storm. East Anglia has always been famous for it beers and smaller breweries thoroughly enjoy the challenge of competing against the big players in the region.
One of the leaders in the field is the Wolf Brewery, whose brewers are driven by a passion to make distinctive East Anglia beers known to a wider audience. Its founder, Wolfe Witham, was the driving force behind the hugely popular Reindeer brewpub in Norwich during its heyday in the 1980’s.
The Wolf Brewery opened in 1995 on the old Gaymers Cider site in Attleborough but after 10 years of steady growth the business outgrew the premises. In 2006, a major investment was made in a new brewplant at a new premises, a couple of miles away in the village of Besthorpe.
More recently, Wolf has installed a state of the art bottling plant so that ale aficionados further afield can enjoy more of the prize winning ales.
As always quality comes first and a genuine quality product, crafted with care and packed with goodness, is something we are very proud to offer. The Wolf brewery is also part of the East Anglian Brewers Co-operative. This organisation is, among other things, taking steps to work with local farmers aiming for ‘full traceability’ so that eventually the beer can be traced right through from the grain to the glass.
Our ingredients are local, our recipes and our methods are local - and we always want to keep it this way. We believe that East Anglia is the home of quality brewing!
Cask at Merton Beer Festival, Oxfordshire, July 7th and 8th 2006. I actually managed to sneak one of these on the Thursday before the Festival opened up and must say I was very impressed with this beer. Poured a mid brown colour and looked and tasted like a good standard British session bitter, an uncomplicated fruity, malty nice bitter beer. Quite a good body and really punching above its weight considering it is only 3.9%. The person I sampled this with said they would have been quite happy to just be drinking this all night despite the presence of the rest of the beers on offer and that I think says something.
Cask gravity at Catford BF 06. Copper with thin off white head. Aromatic, not huge lavender. Something flowery lurks there though. Good in mouth with tea like flavours and juicy malts. Good aromatic bitter.
Cask handpull at Catford BF 06. My beer of the festival. Gold with lasting white head. Attractive citric hop aroma. Good golden beer with good juicy malt. Very nice indeed, good balanced hop on end. Very drinkable and good for the summer.
Cask handpull at Yew Tree Inn, Barfretone. Chestnut colour with lasting beige head. Beautiful nettle/herb hop aroma with grapefruit. Fullish in mouth with malt underpinning the elegant hops and citrus fruit. Slightly woody too. Excellent session beer. Good hoppy finish with more nettle hops.
[Cask at GBBF 2005] A hazy orange beer with a thin lazing beige head. The aroma is hoppy, which also gives it citrus and floral notes. The flavor is sweet with notes of citrus, leading to a dry bitter end.
Bottle. Golden beer with a good head. The aroma is very, dry, slightly sour, fruity and citric, and the flavour is again very dry and slighty citric/sour. Overall a nice reasonably complex beer.
Bottle. Amber beer with an active head due to the bottle conditioning. The aroma is spicey and dry and the flavour is very dry and slightly sour. Overall a reasonable pale bitter.
Cask gravity at Kent beer festival. I was looking forward to trying this, but was a little disappointed. Ruby colour malty nose with some fruit. odd flavour in mouth maybe needed a bit more time to settle. Bit sweet
[Cask at GBBF 2004] A hazy yellow beer with a small white head. The aroma is wheaty, while the flavor is sweet malty with notes of caramel and the body is thin.
Dark golden ale with a thin off-white head. Light malts with pleasant fresh hoppy notes. Good malt with a nice discreet hops in final, and nice alcohol warmth. Medium bodied. Good recommendation from the landlord.