Richard Frost: Settling In

Posted: 06 March 2012

Author: Richard Frost

In his first Blog our new Head Brewer, Richard Frost, provides some thoughts from his first few weeks at Shepherd Neame:

It has been just over seven weeks since I joined Shepherd Neame as Head Brewer so I thought it was time I shared my experiences over the last few weeks with you in my first blog. Prior to Shepherd Neame I worked for Marston's PLC for over 30 years so it was quite a challenge for me to leave my friends and colleagues at Marston's and start all over again with another brewery. I am glad to say that the transition was made very easy by the incredibly friendly atmosphere at Shepherd Neame and the way that everyone made me feel very welcome right from my first day.

I’ve been keen to find out as much as I can about Britain’s oldest brewer and I’ve been fascinated by the contrast between old and new. Walking down the cobbled brewery yard I can see the scratches in the brick walls made by horse drawn wagons that collected spent grains from the brewery over the centuries, while in the keg filling area a robot carefully places empty kegs on the filling line and then stacks the full kegs into neat columns.

In the brewhouse famous ales such as Spitfire and Bishops Finger are mashed in oak mash tuns around 100 years old, then later in the process these are packaged using a modern high speed bottling line that can fill up to 36,000 bottles an hour.

I have been very lucky to inherit a highly qualified team of brewers with a wealth of experience gained at different breweries across the country and I am really looking forward to working with them to brew the fantastic range of Shepherd Neame beers, and hopefully some new ones as well.

 

Richard Frost - Head Brewer

 

 

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