When long time friend and fellow CAMRA member Rob Neil phoned to tell me that he was the new brewer at the nearby Maypole Brewery, I must admit I was quite surprised. For despite his passion for real ale, apart from the odd experiment with a Munton’s home brew kit in his younger years, he had had no brewing experience or training at all.

Despite this, the ex biscuit salesman who lives in North Muskham, rose to the challenge and carried on producing the high quality Maypole brews we all know and love, such as Celebration and Mayfair, and also introduced a handful of new brews (more on those later).

The story started late 2001, when local publican Kenny Munro, currently the landlord of the Good Beer Guide listed Square and Compass at Normanton on Trent, acquired the brewery from its founder, Danny Losinski and employed Rob as the new brewer. Rob started work in December of that year, with his entire training consisting of one month’s in–house brewing with Danny. Eight brews later, and Rob was on his own.

The only changes Rob made Danny’s beers was to rename the Mae West to Wellow Gold (4.6%). The others – Mayfair (3.8%), Celebration (4.0%) and Loxley Ale (4.2%) remained untouched.

The first few months were spent building the brand and increasing the brewery’s customer base.

A new set of distinctive pump clips were introduced and Maypole beers can now be found in many local outlets. Actually, Rob is the first to admit that he can’t brew the stuff quick enough to keep up with demand.

Whilst I’ve seen more bijou breweries than Maypole, it is still on the small side, and with its 2½ barrel output a week, Rob is finding it difficult to meet demand. “Expansion is planned sometime” he admits, but whether it will be in the existing outbuildings on North Laithes Farm, Eakring or somewhere else (the Square and Compass?) is not so certain. “We have the room to install a 7½ barrel or even 10 barrel plant here”, he says “but whether we do it here or not needs thinking about”.

Never the less, he is coping admirably with the equipment available and as he approaches his 150th brew, he has made some excellent additions to the Maypole range. Lion’s Pride (3.6%) was introduced, then Brew Britannia (4.5%) and Normanton IPA (3.6%), followed by Mad Mild (4.9%), brewed for CAMRA's Mild in May campaign.

His most recent addition, Mach 2 (5.2%) was brewed specially as a one-off for this year’s Newark Beer festival, and won the ‘Beer of the Festival award’. It’s since proved so popular that Rob’s decided to make it a semi-regular. Indeed, the latest gyle has sold out even before it’s been racked off into casks! Maypole also won the beer of the festival at last year’s Event in the Tent with Lion’s Pride.

So the last eighteen months has seen Maypole produce half-a-dozen new beers, two consecutive Newark Beer of the Festival awards, and their demand outstripping supply. Not bad for a biscuit salesman!

Maypole Brewery 07971 277598

BoldBelvoir
5/7/03