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 P
L E N T Y 
Meet Your Maker
Badger Ales
Badger Ales’ head brewer tells us how Hall & Woodhouse’s
centuries-old Blandford brewery remains ahead of the times
H
Special Effects
You can go on tours
of the new Badger
brewery and learn
about this historic
Dorset company.
all & Woodhouse, the home
of Badger Ales, celebrates its
240th anniversary this year.
That it has survived and thrived for so long
can partially be attributed to the company’s
willingness to innovate. Take Golden Glory,
for example – this peachy, light ale was
developed before every pub in the land had a
golden beer on tap. Then there’s the thrice-
hopped Hopping Hare, which was produced
ahead of the American-inspired craft beer
revolution. This is a company that not only
uses the finest English ingredients for its
traditional Tanglefoot ale but is prepared to
experiment with Slovenian and American
hops to produce new, exciting flavours –
flavours that also go well with food. Head
Brewer Toby Heasman told us about the
secret of the company’s success.
How have things changed since you
started working with Badger Ales?
In the last five years, we’ve built a whole
new brewery – the previous brewery we
had dated back to 1899. As for the beers
themselves, some of them are the same –
the mainstay brands such as Tanglefoot
and Fursty Ferret – but we’ve also got
newer beers within the range, including An
American Venture, which is a hoppy and a
more craft-orientated beer.
For all of the beers, we have the same core
principles of only using the finest premium
ingredients. For us, that’s our ale malt –
we use a very high-quality brewing barley
variety called Flagon which is used to make
our ale malt. The speciality malts we use
come from Simpsons Malt, and again, are
considered the highest quality roasted malts
in the world. Alongside that, we use the
highest quality hops and our own pure water
that’s been filtered down through 50 metres
of chalk.
Where do you get your hops from?
In Tanglefoot we use English varieties
of hops, including Goldings, First Gold
and Challenger – we see Tanglefoot as
quintessentially English. If you then look
at Fursty Ferret, that combines some
English varieties in Goldings alongside
some Slovenian hops, which adds a different
twist. Then there’s American Venture and
Owlers – they’re using Mosaic, Cascade
and Amarillo, and those three American
varieties give a very strong aroma and punch
to that beer.
Game on!
Head Brewer Toby
Hea sma n has been
mak ing Bad ger
Ales for over 10
year s.
What’s the difference between
American and English hops?
Part of it is the variety, and part of it is
where they’re grown in the world. If you
take the American varieties, you tend to
get a greater intensity of flavours than the
UK ones. In the US, the hops are grown
predominantly in Washington State
on the Western coast – they get a high
amount of heat in the summer, but they’re
irrigated from the glacial lakes. So, you get
a high amount of water but relatively low
humidity in high heat – the perfect growing
conditions.
Also, some of the UK hop growers are
starting to develop new varieties that are
bringing forward different and new flavours.
Jester would be a good example of that
– we’ve got a new beer coming out next
month, which is called Union Joker; it uses
all British Hop Association hops, but still
has a good hop character to it.
What makes your beers distinctive?
You have a lot of fruity flavours
coming through…
Our yeasts naturally produce a lot of fruit
flavours – we’ve got Golden Glory with
peach notes in it, or Golden Champion
which has got the Elderflower notes in
it, or the Flyer, which has ginger; then
there’s the Poacher which has damson and
liquorice coming through. Some of those
beers are quite different, and that provides
a uniqueness, but then alongside that,
you’ve got the heritage and history that goes
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21
Feet First
Tanglefoot is one
of Badger’s best
loved beers.