Wilts has plenty to offer

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed that Wiltshire didn’t appear in our South West feature in the last issue. Printing gremlins were responsible, so here Andrew Tierney-Jones tries once more to get to grips with the county

The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed that Wiltshire was mysteriously removed from our South West feature in the second issue of Beers of the World.

Printing gremlins were responsible, so here is our guide to the best breweries in Wiltshire.

Stonehenge, Netheravon, Wiltshire

If you want a green beer then spring is the time when Stonehenge release their verdant-coloured Sign of Spring. It’s based on an old Danish brewing tradition according to Stig Anker Andersen, who has run the show since 1993 when he bought what was then called Bunce’s off its original founder.

Even though Stonehenge are noted for fresh and fruity ales such as the award-winning Danish Dynamite (5%) and gold-coloured Spire Ale (3.8%), Stig’s background is in lager.

He was a master brewer back home but fed up of producing cut-price lagers for the supermarkets he fancied a change. When Bunce’s came up for sale he and wife Anna Maria crossed the North Sea and swapped Saccharomyces carlsbergensis for Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The 20-barrel brewery is based in what looks like an old tower brewery but was actually especially built in 1914 to supply power to a nearby airfield.

Its chequered history includes time as a boxing match venue and plastics factory, while in World War II it was used to store scale models of the German cities the RAF were bombing. Naturally there is a ghost, according to Stig.

More recently Stonehenge has brewed a beer to celebrate the reintroduction of the Great Bustard onto Sa.....

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By Andrew Tierney-Jones

Section : Spotlight

Page number : 14