HB&B Blog — Norfolk

When I visited Duration Brewing’s idyllic Norfolk home in West Acre last summer, head brewer and co-founder Derek Bates told me he wanted to brew “lots of lager”. The brewery was still in its proto-stages of development then. The medieval barn that was being converted into the building that would eventually house the equipment which makes its beer still lacked a proper floor and drainage. However, it was no less breathtaking – the building and the surrounding fields, farms, forests and streams all added to the sense of place Duration was looking to foster in its permanent home. The brewery...

People sometimes ask me how I come up with the inspiration for these columns – whether I begin with the beer or with a dish. The answer is: haphazardly, and the order of operations tends to vary month by month. In this case, I began with the beer. Duration Brewing’s Promise of Spring “Norfolk Witbier” is a 5% dream of a wheat beer, which drinks dry and clean and has only a minimal ester profile. It felt like the right thing for the seasonal transition: an optimistic omen of warm and sunny days ahead, of the end of a dreary,...