Oakham Ales Brewery

Happy Monday Morning to all of my fantastic followers, I hope you’ve all had a tremendous weekend with whatever you’ve been doing!

I must admit I’ve had an amazing weekend, me and Isobel spent yesterday at Calke Abbey which is formed part of the National Trust charity!

It was amazing, we are both feeling tired now after doing loads of walking, but after 5 months of struggling to see each other, it was a lovely feeling to be reunited again.

Today’s brewery post is on Oakham Ales!

History 

Oakham Ales is a tremendous brewery which was originally founded in 1993 by John Wood.

The former brewery was established in the county of Oakham within the village of Rutland, the capacity of this small brewery was 10 barrels a week, things did change though as the years moved on, you will find out later on in this post.

In the same year, the first beer was released known as Jeffry Hudson Bitter (JHB), the inspiration of the beer came from Sir Jeffrey Hudson also known as “Lord Minimus” this reason was due to Jeffrey being from Oakham, and he was known as the smallest man in the county of Oakham.

Next, in 1995 John Wood retired and handed over the reins to John Bryan who became the head brewer, 25 years on to this day, Mr Bryan is still in charge of brewing and spends most of the time thinking of new ideas for new beers.

This is John Wood the founder of the remarkable brewery, Oakham Ales!

Then, in 1998 the brewery moved to its new location in Peterborough within the county of Cambridgeshire, this also allowed the brewery to increase its brewery plant from 10 barrels a week to a 35 barrel brewery.

In 2001, Oakham Ales secured there first ever award at the Great British Beer Festival, JHB became the Supreme Champion Beer Of Britain for the first time.

5 years later, due to an increase in demand, the brewery had to relocate to a new 75 barrel brewery plant to Woodston in Peterborough, the symbolic padlock and chain were cut by the original owner John Wood.

Next, in 2008 Oakham Ales launched the Oakademy Of Excellence,  this allowed pubs to join the members club and stock a wide range of the brewery’s beers.

2010 saw the arrival of the new Sales and Marketing Director, expansion was underway at the site to cope with the rapid increase of sales.

Head brewer John Bryan was promoted to Brewing Director, Alex Kean became the new head brewer.

In 2014, Citra became Gold Champion in the category “Beer Of Britain” at the Great British Beer Festival.

Furthermore, in 2017, expansion work was carried out on the brewery, this allowed the capacity to be hugely increased up to 75’000 barrels of beer per year.

Finally, in 2019, CAMRA awarded Oakham Ales ‘Brewery Of The Year’ award due to continued increase in sales and also for the quality of beer that has been brewed at a consistent rate.

Oakham Ale Beers

Jeffrey Hudson Bitter (JHB) 3.8% (Cask) 4.2% (Bottle) – The first beer that was brewed in 1993, light gold in colour and distinctively smooth, with citrus fruitiness and a refreshing hoppy finish.

Inferno – 4.0% ABV (Cask) 4.4% ABV (Bottle) – A light gold beer with a big personality, bursting with fruity hop flavours, citrus notes and a refreshing finish.

Citra – 4.2% ABV (Cask) 4.6% ABV (Bottle) – The Original UK Citra! Light gold in colour which is bursting with citrus and tropical hop flavours, sensationally refreshing. You can check out my full Cask Ale review post on Citra here!

Scarlet Macaw – 4.4% ABV (Cask) 4.8% ABV (Bottle) – A fantastic classical American Pale Ale! Exciting, fruity hop flavours and an intensely refreshing bitterness that’s as sharp as a Macaw’s screech.

Bishop’s Farewell – 4.6% ABV (Cask) 5.0% ABV (Bottle) – A golden, premium beer with a smooth malty background, rich and fruity hop flavours and a refreshing finish.

Green Devil IPA – 6.0% ABV (Cask & Bottle) – Twice World Champion Cask Beer at the prestigious International Brewing Awards, this contemporary IPA explodes with amazing hop harvest aromas, packs in big tropical and citrus hop flavours before a crisp, refreshing finish.

The range that is listed above is the general core range that the brewery provides, to check out there seasonal range which differ from month to month please click here!

I will admit that the range of beers that are available do sound absolutely beautiful, the flavours that are combined are just terrific.

My favourite beer from this brewery is Citra, this is purely down to the aromas that the beer brings, flavours of Citrus and Lemon are delivered throughout, making it an unbelievable and remarkable Cask Ale.

Ending

Oakham Ales has truly shown its full capabilities of being a tremendous brewery, starting off small with brewing only 10 barrels a week, to now brewing over 70’000 barrels of beer per year, this truly shows that the strength this brewery has achieved is immense.

The combination of flavours in all of there beers are just amazing, citrus and fruity aromas are just beer galore.

I have to say how amazing this brewery is, and I completely recommend you all to try there range, by all means, if you have, please do comment and let me know what you think of the beers.

I really hope in the years to come, the brewery does have the potential to come up with more ideas and hopefully newly featured beers!

I really hope you’ve enjoyed this reading this post, I hope you all have a fantastic start to your week.

Take Care and Stay Safe

The Cask Connoisseur