57
THE UNION
What were the aims of BrewSoc when you began, and have you achieved them?
BrewSoc began as a weekly lecture to help students to learn about the brewing process, with half-termly brew days at the weekend. We have since tried brewing cider annually and were quite successful this year (we sold about 60 litres at the Christmas Fair). We became a registered brewery in 2019 (Brueri Alleyniensis) and we can legally brew beer and sell cider. We pay excise duty on everything we brew, so while the ingredients are quite cheap the tax bill is less so!
What have you enjoyed about the process of brewing and the running of BrewSoc?
Making beer is good fun. It’s scientific and creative. It requires patience, but not that much skill – but then we have yet to make a really excellent beer! I have really enjoyed teaching about brewing and working with the students on brew days. It’s hard work, but really pays off when you open a nice bottle of beer that you’ve made yourself. I’ve also really enjoyed the Founder’s Days, pre-Covid, when we gave away our left-over stock to parents and OAs, and I also loved the 2019 celebrations when we brewed a batch of beer to a more or less authentic 400-year-old recipe and served it at the OA summer event. Nigel Farage was a big fan of the beer, although that might have been because it was free!
I love the idea that there was a brewery onsite 400 years ago “
What do you hope to do with the society in the future?
The cycling team have given us a little of their space under the Library to store our equipment, but I’d really like to turn it into a proper microbrewery so that we can sell the beer we make, not just the cider. I have not, on the other hand, enjoyed getting to the bottom of the legalities of brewing, neither have I enjoyed scrabbling around for funding every year, hence the desire to become self-funding through cider sales.
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker