Paul Halsey and Jim Minkin brought their 50 years of shared brewing & hospitality experience and passion to establish a 20bbl brewery in 2005. The name came as a nod to the Reinheitsgebot; the star within the logo a nod back to a pre-literary age and the colour red to Paul’s previous employer.
The brewery runs on a credo of three core pillars:
Pure Quality: brewing the best beer possible, from grain to glass; focussing on the independent free trade, with an industry leading on-trade training programme, ensuring their accounts are equally quality driven.
Pure Eco: B-Corp accredited, the brewery constantly works to save on ingredients; energy; water (2.8 pints water/pint beer); waste (the brewery sits on 4.5 acres of passive wetland system) in order to mitigate against environmental impact.
Pure Community: encouraging consumers to become “Puritans”. The brewery does not have a tap room due to the rural location but community initiatives are developed, with the Mad Goose Chase an annual occurrence and Purity acting as a burger/beer pit stop. The brewery owns one outlet (Pure Craft, Birmingham)
Flo Vialan, Brewing Director, joined Purity in 2007 and installation of a 60hl modular build brewery, based on lean manufacturing principles, enabled expansion of beer styles to the current portfolio of 20 beers.
With the current stock of FVs, the brewery has capacity to brew up to 5 brews/day and expand beyond the 10 million pints brewed and sold in 2022. Two yeast tanks allow the brewery to handle as many yeast strains as wanted and the 50l pilot kit facilitates their NPD programme.
In terms of packaging, beers are canned (unfiltered)/packaged to large pack on site and bottled off site by Holdens. The current balance of cask/keg (60/40) reflects the national migration to keg beers.
Malt is sourced from the UK. Hops are increasingly being sought from the UK, with Purity supporting the UK hop industry by trialling new varieties and replacing hops with a larger carbon footprint. Water is “corporation pop” via Severn Trent. The comprehensive micro lab tests for DO, CO2, PH, alcohol and haze. Brewers’ grains are fed direct to farm and spent hops used as fertiliser on farm.
The reed bed/passive wetland system, comprises a series of ponds. The first anaerobic pond is 6m deep, where a sediment of yeast and dry hops flocculates to the bottom. The roots of surrounding willow trees, reeds and other vegetation purify the water as it flows from pond to pond, the final pond aerating the water to increase oxygen. Water is tested to an Environment Agency remit on BOD, suspended solids and PH, ultimately being discharged into the river Arrow.
We have a huge vote of thanks to give to John Conod, Purity Experience Manager and Flo Vialan for their time and the opportunity to sample their wonderful beers. If you happen to be anywhere near Gt Alne, Warwickshire please do take time to visit the brewery shop and, even better, book a brewery tour.
Click here to view the visit
