The Freeminer Brewery in the Royal Forest of Dean has successfully forged links with the Co-operative retail group and Warminsetr Maltings Ltd in an innovative scheme whereby barley from the Co-op’s own farms is being made into malt for brewing the Co-ops own label beers.

Thanks to the enterprise of Don Burgess, founder of Freeminer Brewery, this development comes at a time when the Co-op has significantly enhanced its standing within the UK ’s retail food sector.

Freeminer Brewery has always been in the vanguard of the ‘Small Brewery Revolution’ ever since Don opened the brewery in 1992, and one of his mantra’s has always been to source only the very best raw materials, and to ensure that, to thoroughly investigate their source and supply. This is how he came to forge his friendship with Warminster Maltings, and its managing director Chris Garratt. This maltings not only sources its barley supply from farms close to the brewery, it also still makes its malt in the time honoured way, slowly, by hand, on floors, in Britains oldest working maltings.

An opportunity for Don to bring the Co-op, Warminster Maltings and his brewery all together came out of an idea spawned by CAMRA’s (Campaign for Real Ale) award to Don in 2008 which proclaimed him a “Hero of British Brewing” for his work with Warminster Maltings in developing the maltings’ own “Warranty of Origin” trademark. This trademark provides both brewers and their customers with the opportunity to identify with their own unique malting barley supply – variety/soil type/region/grower/malting process – in specific beers. As well as creating an advanced dialogue within the supply chain, this initiative also helps brewers and retailers to demonstrate their support for British farming, something which the Co-operative works particularly hard at.

So, having been awarded a contract to brew bottled beers for the Co-op to be marketed under the Co-op’s own label, Don recognised the natural progression was to draw on a barley supply from the Co-op’s own farms, in this case Manor Farm, Clearwell situated just to the south west of the brewery, and arrange for this barley to be made into malt at Warminster. With the addition of hops grown by Thomas Hawkin in Worcester , all Don’s ingredients now contribute to a truly regional product range for the Co-op.

Charmay Ball, Account Manager for The Co-operative Farms says “we are really delighted with our arrangement with Don, because he is not only brewing a great range of beers for The Co-op, but he has provided us with sensitive added value which we are very confident our customers will recognise and support”. Chris Garratt of Warminster Maltings is also pleased that he has enabled a great ‘barley to beer’ initiative with serious retail clout!