A group of 19 keen members and friends gathered in the setting sun outside the Thwaites Brewery Visitor's Centre at 7.15pm. Our guide arrived bang on time and soon introduced herself, giving us all a brief outline of the tour and general proceedings. With camera at the ready, I was immediately though convivially warned not to take photographs once inside the brewery proper - the Thwaites family obviously want to keep their trade secrets just that! invicta replica
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We were led through a security gate and soon found ourselves in a lift heading for the sixth of nine floors in the brewing tower, a prominent landmark in Blackburn centre. Interestingly, the brewing process generally follows the flow of gravity, starting at the top of the tower and ending near the bottom, and our guide took us on a journey down many stairs and levels as we traced the production of Thwaites' famous brews.

Our first port of call was the storage area where pleasant hoppy aromas filled the air. We saw dried whole hops and their modern equivalent, pure hop pellets that contain no waste products whatsoever. Some steps led down to the control room, which resembled that of a nuclear power station with schematic diagrams plastered over the walls and a bank of computer terminals displaying all stages of the brewing plant. Here a team of six people (reduced to two by the time we arrived) governed the brew in immense 100,000-pint capacity tanks.

The vast brewing vats were empty with it being early evening, the day's fresh brews having already surpassed the initial stages of mixing and mashing. Nevertheless, we had a peek through some glass hatches to get a sense of scale if nothing else. En route to the fermentation levels, our guide pointed out the oldest remains of the brewery including part of an old water well and the Thwaites stables, which are still used today by the family show horses.

The innards of Thwaites - seventh largest brewery in the UK - are like a labyrinth with a maze of corridors, antechambers, stairs, pipes and tanks, all of which are evidence of the ongoing expansion of the present day plant over the centuries. Despite the confusing surroundings, our expert guide led the way onward as we saw the lager fermentation chambers and several hundred thousand pints increasing their ABV in gargantuan Yorkshire Square tanks.

At the bottom of the tower we witnessed the very noisy bottling and kegging process on the shop floor, including the sterilisation of returned beer barrels using a £3 million state-of-the-art machine. Thwaites have heavily invested in the future of brewing in Blackburn, even though only a small proportion of production goes into making cask ales nowadays.

We rounded off a very enjoyable evening back in the Visitor's Centre bar, where we were also free to peruse the small brewery museum just off the main bar. We spent a couple of hours supping our choice of five real ales, several foreign wheat bears and other beverages - all expertly served by a very knowledgeable keeper - complimented by a Lancashire hotpot supper.

We all gathered outside the brewery Visitor		Our guide leads the way through the gates at the start of the tour
We all enjoyed good company and a hotpot supper in the visitor's bar		Admiring the old tools and brewing memorabilia in the museum
The helpful barkeeper and his impromptu assistant - our guide!		black