Beer drinkers in Suffolk have always been blessed with splendid local real ales that are among the very best in Britain. But now, thanks to an explosion in microbrewing there’s even more choice on offer. Anne Gould finds out more

There’s nothing better on a warm summer night than a fine pint of bitter in the garden of one of Suffolk’s renowned traditional pubs.

Likewise when it’s cold outside settling down in front of a great log fire at a local hostelry, with a pint of winter warmer is also a great treat.

Living in Suffolk these occasions are part of our heritage and maybe something we tend to take for granted.

You might say we are lucky that our region has a fine brewing tradition with such well loved breweries as Adnams and Greene King but thanks to microbrewing, that choice has recently become even bigger. The lesson that history shows us though is that you either use it, or lose it.

A hundred years ago there were about 300 breweries in East Anglia but by 1975 that number had dwindled to a mere handful as foreign lager invaded the market. The big boys Greene King, Adnams and Tolly Cobbold were still there but that was pretty much it.

Then about a decade later a revolution began as pubs, eager to offer a variety of real ales to their customers, started brewing themselves.

Today the number of microbrewers in the region stands at about 100 - which is great news for beer lovers, especially as many pubs now offer regular “guest” beers.

So Places&Faces has sought out three microbreweries - all of different sizes, which aim to offer drinkers something a little bit different.

Mill Green Brewery, Edwardstone

Father and son John and Tom Norton have a sense of history and a respect for the environment which has shaped what is surely Britain’s most eco-friendly micro brewery.

Everything from the ingredients to the energy they use has to pass their strict green credentials with the aim of producing quality beer in the most historic way possible.

Little wonder they have won Green Tourism awards for the White Horse Inn and adjoining cottages and if there was an award for a green brewery they’d almost certainly win that too.

John, who lives in Groton bought the pub six years ago because it was threatened with closure and being a businessman - he owns Norton Organic Grain Ltd - realised that it could not be sustained by the locals alone.

So he set about creating a destination that would attract tourists with a camp site and holiday cottages, he also went to great efforts (using pictures from the past) to reverse the damage done by subsequent pub modernisations that had left Lino on the floor and stripped of its ancient character.

Being a lover of real ale the next obvious task was to create a microbrewery and in partnership with his son Tom and architect friend Jimmy Robinson they’ve built something really special.

“Brewing uses up a lot of energy because you have to boil 160 gallons for the brew so our first aim was to reduce that.”

So they replaced what was a fallen down corrugated iron and chipboard shed with a specially constructed eco friendly brew house with a secret “ingredient”

The roof has 25 square feet of solar panels, which feed a massive heat exchanger which helps to heat the water for the beer.

A wood boiler which uses coppiced wood from Bull’s Cross woods over the road and Groton Woods in the next village also helps as a top up on cloudy days and if necessary electricity (from a green supplier) is used as well.

Extra special care is used with the ingredients too - they use their own organic malt which is specially made in the old fashioned way but Tom, the brewer, buys in the hops because the variety influences the character of the beer.

“We try to get organic but most organic hops are bought up by the big companies. We are also looking, as an experiment to start with, to grow our own organic hops too. It means we can’t always say our beer is totally organic but it’s as environmentally friendly as it can be.”

At present he brews twice a week to supply the pub and some goes to free trade outlets through Adnam’s. They also get asked to supply beer for local parties, events and weddings.

Tom says they’ve currently got four permanent beers, White Horse bitter, Loveleys Fair, Mawkin Mild and Green Goose.

They’ve obviously had a great deal of fun naming the beers - all of which have a local connection. He explained that the brewery is located at what was known as Loveleys Green - so they launched it at their annual beer festival held in summertime when the traditional old local fair would have been held.

Mawkin - refers to the old fashioned name for scarecrow and remembers the Suffolk farm workers who drank “mild” for hundreds of year and the green goose used to be eaten at Harvest Festival.

But it’s the occasional beers that perhaps are more unusual - there’s elderflower ale - which includes elderflowers picked from local hedgerows and this autumn there’s going to be an autumn beer made with blackberries and elderberries.

Then there’s The Good Ship Arabella a pale American-style brew named after the vessel that set sail from Great Yarmouth carrying son of Edwardstone, the puritan John Winthrop, who later became the first Governor of Massachusetts.

White Lion, Ufford

Landlord Stephen Thurlow is something of a newbie when it comes to brewing - he started up in May of this year but his beers are already getting something of a reputation.

They are already being offered as guest beers by Adnam’s and of course will have had pride of place at the White Lion’s annual beer festival at the end of August.

First and foremost they will complement a pub that is surely one of the smallest, most unspoilt, old fashioned and most delightful alehouses in Suffolk.

With its stillage, traditional tables and mismatched chairs and benches it’s a great place to enjoy a pint and watch time go by, much as would have happened in the old days.

“Only a handful of pubs in East Anglia still look after beer in this way, no gas, no pumps, just a cooling jacket to maintain optimum temperature. The original and best method to ensure a perfect pint,” he says.

Stephen and his wife Gaynor like to call the White Lion a “hidden treasure” and as you can’t get a mobile signal there, for love nor money, in many ways it is as you can’t be abruptly pulled back into the modern age with the insistent ring of your telephone.

What’s special about this brewery, called Uffa after the Anglo Saxon King Uffa or Wuffa, is that Stephen is a trained chef and finalist in British Chef of the Year who demands the very best, not just of the food served at his pub but of his beer as well.

He bought the pub eight years ago after living in the village for 20 years and having a career as MD of Ufford Park and the owner of a fishcake factory for 13 years.

At the time it was threatened with closure but since he and his wife took over they sensitively upgraded the pub and through various car rallies and special events for villagers including table tennis and a charity fireworks night has built up a local/national and even international clientele.

Microbrewing is something that he’s been wanting to bring to the pub for a long time and while Gaynor was busy setting up a village shop and delicatessen on the premises in the spring, Stephen was sorting out the conversion of an old outbuilding for a brewery and doing a course in Bury, Lancashire.

“I was very nervous when I did my first brew but invited the whole village to raise a glass with us when it was made, and it’s been well received.”

Currently he makes five different beers, Uffa Gold, Uffa Tipple, Uffa Pride, Uffa Punch and Uffa Fox but the Gold, which he describes as a light refreshing session ale is at the moment by far the most popular.

The locals have taken to the beer with such enthusiasm that Stephen has set up a Brewery membership and discount card for real ale enthusiasts.

Planned for the future is a Ladies Real Ale week, which will also feature a special brew that will be golden and served cool - in special glasses.

Cliff Quay Brewery, Ipswich

There’s been a brewery on the dockside in Ipswich since around 1700 and for a while it was home to the famous Tolly Cobbold.

Today though at the back of the Brewery Tap and amid a site that’s undergoing demolition, Jeremy Moss works alone.

His business is part of the Earl Soham Brewery, which was among the pioneers of the latest generation of Suffolk microbrewers but Jeremy has been brewing on site now since 2009.

In many ways he’s different to the new breed of brewers because it’s something he’s been doing all his life.

He became a brewer after leaving full time education and as his career developed he moved from one employer to the other. His last employed job was at the famous Wychwood Brewery in Oxfordshire where he was Head Brewer.

“The thing was I seemed to spend my whole time in front of a desk looking at budget sheets. The fun had gone out of it.”

So having grown up in Stutton, he decided to return home and went into partnership with John Bjornson, who owns the famous Earl Soham brewery, The Victoria pub in the village and The Station at Framlingham.

He took the lease of the old brewery site and the Brewery Tap (which had been closed for a while and was in need of updating) and in those early days talks about having to sleep in front of the pub fire because it was freezing cold and there was no heating.

Jeremy quickly realised though that being the landlord wasn’t for him and the lease has now passed to Charlie and Mike Keen, which allows him the time to devote to Cliff Quay Brewery.

His aim is to make high quality beer that is really tasty and for this reason buys his hops from America or Slovenia.

He said that they had deliberately chosen to make Earl Soham beers slightly different to Cliff Quay beers so there’s more choice in the market.

His beers - Cliff Quay bitter, Anchor bitter Sea Dog and Tumble Home - have proved very popular not just in pubs across Ipswich but up on the Suffolk Coast at some of our top tourist spots.

“We now have about 50 stockists across Suffolk, south Norfolk, north Essex and into Cambridgeshire.”

“There’s also a small amount of bottling for off sales and this is an area where we might look to expand.”

He said that he currently produced between 20 and 30 barrels a week but if things continue to go well that could double in the next three years.

Running your own business can be really full on and especially for a brewer Jeremy says it can be pretty much 24/7 especially if you’ve got a brew on.

So although he says that now there looks as if there’s light at the end of the tunnel - there’s also a lot of love there too.