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Hidden in an industrial estate off Meanwood   Road, in what had once been a training centre for plumbers, Simon Bolderson is brewing beer. As cask ale sales increase, new micro-breweries seem to be popping up across the country. In West Yorkshire, we’re especially lucky, we’re the region with the most real ale breweries – currently at 34 – and Bolderson’s Ridgeside Brewery will be number 35.

Ridgeside Brewery, named after the glorious Meanwood Ridge parkland near the brewery site, has been a work in progress for a few months now, and the first batches of beer are now being brewed with an aim for the first casks to reach pubs in mid to late May.

Bolderson, a former electronics engineer who was made redundant during the recession, set up the brewery for a very good reason. “I like beer,” he says. “Good quality beer. There’s a big difference between liking beer and going out and drinking anything – that’s something different. There are so many different beers, so many different flavours you can brew – an infinite number, really.”

While this will be Bolderson’s first commercial brewery, he’s been brewing beer for himself and friends at home for sometime. “I’ve got a very sophisticated homebrew set up at home,” he says. “It’s more like a miniature micro-brewery – all stainless steel tanks, and pumps, permanently plumbed in and everything. It’ll be coming down here and be used as a pilot brewery for the test brews that I do.

“Homebrewing gives you that freedom to experiment and do whatever you want. You start off trying to copy other brews. From there you think, ‘hang on, I like that, but I can take it in a slightly different direction’. That’s what all brewers do. They’ve got something in their mind of how they want it to taste – it’s got to be commercially viable as well – but hopefully you can do both these things.”

The brewery will initially be making three regular beers alongside monthly specials. “The regulars are all recipes that I’ve honed over the years,” says Bolderson. “They go down well with my friends and hopefully other people will appreciate them as well. A lot of work has gone into those three beers and I’ve got loads of other recipes that I’ve honed over the years, and the first lot of specials will be some of those.”

With a number of pubs already set to stock Ridgeside’s beers, Bolderson’s hoping that he’ll get more stockists when people taste his first brews. He doesn’t, however, have plans to expand rapidly. “It’d be a big mistake to try and grow too big too quickly,” he says. “It’s possible, in doing that, to lose the quality. It becomes more of a money making exercise run by accountants and I’m not into that. Obviously I want to do well, I want the brewery to do well and for the beer to be enjoyed. I want people to go out and say ‘Ridgeside Brewery do some bloody good ales’. That’s the ambition, really.”

To ensure that the quality is consistent, the brewery will have a temperature controlled area where he can dispense and try each batch before it reaches the pubs. “Until you’ve dispensed it properly you can’t tell exactly how it tastes,” he says, “but we’ll be able to properly serve and test all the beer here. I won’t let anything out the door that’s substandard. I’m in this because I’m passionate about beer. Obviously we’ve got to pays the bills and the mortgage, but quality is the main thing. If someone has a bad pint from me, they might never drink it again.”

Bolderson lists the likes of Leeds Brewery’s Midnight Bell and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord amongst his favourite pints but recognises that almost all the micro-breweries across the country offer an impressive tipple. “That’s what they do it for,” he says, “the quality product. Hopefully I can join them there and offer another quality product.”

You’ll be able to judge when the beers hit the pubs sometime in May.

www.ridgesidebrewery.co.uk

 

Ridgeside Brewery’s Regular Beers

Ridgeside Challenge, 3.9%: Simon says: “A very pleasant light coloured session beer with plenty of hop character coming from the use of Challenger hops late into the boil.”

Ridgeside Best, 4.5%: Simon says: “A small amount of roasted barley along with crystal malt gives this beer a deep ruby red colour. A lovely malt flavour is balanced perfectly by copious amounts of Fuggles and East Kent Goldings hops.”

Black Night, 5%: Simon says: “Rolled oats, roasted to perfection, along with chocolate malt, roasted barley, and crystal malt help to give this strong dark beer a complex malt character with a smooth mouthfeel. Hop flavour is provided by East Kent Goldings.”

Posted on Wednesday 28th April 2010
TG

The Ridgeside Brewing Company

Unit 24 Penraevon Industrial Estate, Meanwood, Leeds, LS7 2AW

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