SOMETHING momentous is brewing in Stalybridge. Something not everyone in the town will be able to place.
But many will be able to taste the results as Bridge Beers gets ready to pour its 100th ale made in the town.
A rather incognito unit standing on Knowl Street has far more going on inside than it seems.
For it is there Dave Bridge and Glenn Hall brew, barrel and bottle the drinks that have made their Melbourne Street bar so popular.
And Friday, June 8 will see Centennial – the 100th variety they have made – on sale to customers as an ambition for former college worker Dave, from Dukinfield, is proving well made.
He recalled: “Ever since I left the college, what I’ve wanted to do is brew beer in Stalybridge. I couldn’t get that to work for 100 reasons, so I opened the bar first and the brewery followed.
“I was going to buy into Hornbeam brewery in Denton about 10 years ago – that’s where it started really but I couldn’t get that to work.
“So when I took redundancy from college, I opened the bar in Stalybridge town centre.
“The bar’s now in its seventh year and it’s all about real ale, cask ale only. We’ve been in the CAMRA guide ever since we were eligible – you’ve got to show you’re a feasible business first.”
After opening Bridge Beers in February 2016, things have grown and the pair now supply about 20 other venues in Tameside and beyond, with customers in New Mills, Derbyshire, and Stockport.
But what actually goes into the weeks-long process of converting hops, yeast and water into what is sold to the products that are proving so popular, Dave admits: “We want to expand?”
He added: “The brewing process itself is fairly straight forward, we’ve brewed for 1,000 years but brewing consistently good quality beer that stays the same from brew to brew is a different thing.
“You follow a recipe, though, and it’s 90 per cent ‘follow that,’ and 10 per cent pixie dust!
“Things change – temperatures, weights, timings – that impact on the flavour.
“Citra is the most popular we do. Extra pales are the current fad for beers, so we’ll sell two or three of them to the ambers or darks.
“We record every brew we’ve done, so in our current brewery the first one we did was on July 3, 2021, that was El Dorado with the kit we use now.
“We actually started during lockdown with another kit at the bar. We bought that and while we were shut down, we fired up that kit and perfected our recipes.
“Once we bought what we have, we just upscaled the recipes.”
And now the three figures loom, coming up with the title was reasonably easy.
Dave told The Correspondent: “We decided to do another of our single-hop pales and there happens to be a hop called centennial.
“It seemed a perfect match – they’re popular beers, they’re easy to make and it’s got the right name!”
Sales and the bar’s popularity has proved there is a market for what Dave and Glen produce – and it is a bit more than just a couple of pints.
Glenn, of Ashton, said: “We get 10 barrels for every brew. That’s 460 litres – but we can’t produce enough beer for the supply.
“We do all the bottling as well. The two of us do everything – bar and brewery.”
Bridge Beers can be found at 55, Melbourne Street in Stalybridge and is open on Tuesday and Wednesday from noon until 6pm, on Thursday from noon until 8pm, on Friday from 1pm until 9pm and on Saturday from noon until 9pm.
You can find them online at www.bridgebeers.co.uk and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BridgeBeersLtd/