Editor’s Note: I’ve recently exchanged emails with Mike Ferguson, the Brewer / Keg Washer (as described in his email signature) for Rudder’s Brewpub in Yarmouth. Below is the story of Rudder’s Brewpub in the words of the self described Old Fart:
Rudders Brewery is a 10 bbl gravity flow brewery consisting of grain storage and a grain mill on the 3rd floor and a mash tun/lauter tun on the second floor. On the main floor is a steam heated kettle, a 20 bbl fermenter and two 10 bbl fermenters. In our walk-in cooler are five 10 bbl serving tanks and one 20 bbl serving tank. The gravity flow part comes in from the 3rd floor to the main floor, nothing is pumped until the wort is ready to be pumped through the heat exchanger into the fermenter.
The restaurant, brew pub and brewery are all located on Yarmouth’s waterfront in a 145 year old building. Here we brew about 20 times a year producing 20000 litres of beer. Most of the beer is served in the restaurant with the remainder being sold in 20 litre party kegs and 1.9 litre growler bottles.
Over the years we have brewed 14 different ales and lagers which include the 4 regular signature beers as described on our web site. There are 3 seasonal brews including Lighthouse Lager at 4.5%, Scottish Wee Heavy at 5% and Killam’s Irish Ale at 7%. The Pompey Dick IPA was brewed for the 250th anniversary of Yarmouth and is no longer available. New this month is the ‘Land’s End IPA’ It’s a 6.4% ABV , 22.4 IBU amber copper one-off ale.
At this point we have only used the Maritime malt which was in the Pompey Dick IPA. I may look towards sourcing some hops locally for next year.
Brewery tours are offered when ever I am there. When I am not there Cliff Armsworthy, my assistant and most of the servers are knowledgeable of the brewery workings.
Rudder’s Brew Pub was established in 2000. Prior to that it was called the Queen Molly. The original owners of the Queen Molly built the brewery in 1996. Randy Lawrence of Sea Level brewing, brewed here right up until December 2010. In 2005 I was newly retired and had just moved here from Ontario. Rudder’s became my regular watering hole partly because the atmosphere and character of the old building and the other part was I liked the draft beer that was on tap.
I over heard a conversation between Randy and the General Manager at that time about hiring a brewery assistant. I raised my hand and the rest is as they say is history. Over the next 5 years Randy taught me how to brew (I had not even home brewed at the time). I took an on line course from Seibels to learn the basics and have learned what I can from the internet. I have the perfect retirement job.
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