5 Black Sheep Brewery

Masham is about an hour from us, and the esteemed home of two breweries: Theakston and Black Sheep. We parked in town centre, and this sign made me smile.  We'd intended to tour both breweries, but a lazy morning and a leisurely lunch put our time short, and we only saw Black Sheep.

The view behind the brewery- how on earth do they get any work done when there's good beer and a great view like this to enjoy?!?

Our tour guide was excellent. I suck, and didn't get a picture of her and I don't remember her name- but she reminded me of a Yorkshire Angela Lansbury.  And there is something quite delightful about Mrs. Potts telling you all about beer brewing.

The brewing copper.  I'll be honest- we went there back in mid-July, and I don't remember the details. It's a lot of "water is important, hops are important, heat and stirring and fermenting are important, and we give the spent hops to the cows."  Very similar to a whiskey distillery tour. 

The mash tun.

Beeeeeeeeeeer!

Old wooden kegs (they now use aluminium) and examples of the various sizes of kegs: barrel, firkin, gallon, kilderkin, and hogshead.  Wikipedia describes them here. 

Then we went to the bar and sampled some beer. 

Verdict:

Riggwelter: strong! I give it an "eh, not bad".

Best Bitter: rich and dark. I give it a "great with a fish pie".

Black Sheep Ale: standard beer. I'm not crazy about it (I tend towards dark ales and stouts).

Golden Sheep: very light. Very, very light. Paul liked it, I thought it tasted like Cheerios beer.

Holy Grail: delicious! I give it an "oh, you'd better get another one for you".

Then we went over to Brymoor Ice Cream Parlour for dessert, and had some great ice cream- but I only took pictures of the cows. Standard. 

0 Zaanse Schans: Sawmill and Wooden Shoe Making

Het Jonge Schaap, the sawmill, was probably my favorite.  It's actually a 2007 re-creation of the original sawmill, which was demolished in 1942.  The unique thing about it is before the original mill was destroyed,  an engineer was brought in to create detailed plans and blueprints of the existing mill.  The current recreation was made according to these plans, using historic methods- dovetail joinery, pin-locks, etc.  The only modern implements was the use of cranes for heavy hoisting.

The mill has a niche market for cutting irregular length/width boards, mostly used in reconstruction and renovation of historic properties.  It would cost too much for an industrial sawmill to reset blades for these limited orders, but the cap sawmill can change blades and widths easily. I love that the historic sawmill is used to keep historic properties alive!

The logs are kept in the water until they're ready to be cut.  The bark is stripped with hand-tools, then the logs are fed into the saws.  

Lumberyard!

Zaanse Schans also has a wooden shoe workshop with demonstrations.

They use modern machinery.

I was fascinated by the rows and rows of wooden shoes- on the walls, on the ceilings, stacked on the floor.

The plain-colored but intricately carved shoes are traditional wedding shoes.  They were my favorite!