What is Tucks Brewery & Tap?

Tucks Brewery offers well-crafted beers, handmade from an all-malt mash brewed in our uniquely built brewhouse. Our brewery process is a combination of the time-honoured art of classical brewing and carefully applied, state-of-the-art modern brewery methods which are served healthily and freshly direct to our tap room. But that’s just the shop window. Step inside and see for yourself…

Where did Tucks come from?

Tucks emerged from a friendship of three disparate blokes and an unchecked love of quality beer. Our real story begins when, shooting the breeze over a few cans, obviously, realised we had became disaffected with highly commoditised beer that we buy, often in bulk, for as little as possible, and the fear that this dilution of quality was seeping into pubs and other formerly proud establishments of ‘real ale’.

Even the emergence of the Craft Ale movement, and more on that in another blog, did little to dilute the feeling that the joy of beer seemed a little less sparkly than it once did.

Now, for a little more colour to the picture, Father Simon is a scientist. Yep, there’s always one lurking in the dark places of your world. For most of his life, his kitchen has also been part brewery, and we soon became accustomed to drinking homebrew. What struck us was the difference in the whole drinking experience. We realised we were tasting fresh beer, beer as it would have tasted in the days when there was an alehouse for every 120 people (c. 1577, another blog to be written!).

Back then, when the ale was ready, a pole covered in some form of foliage (an ale stake—the provenance of our pub signs) would be placed outside the door of the alehouse (someone’s kitchen) and in we dive. There was no canning, bottling, long-term conditioning, storage, transportation, refrigeration, and shelf stacking. Who on earth wants to wait for that when there’s beer to be drunk?

Kitchens and garages

Obviously, once you have a revelation you have to act on it, right? So, the kitchen brewery was dismantled, the home garage was emptied, Mother Paul brought in some serious electricity and plumbed up everything that dripped, and a small otherwise-to-be-inheritance was spent on new, big, shiny kit. Thus the community brewery was born.

For those of you who like to know these things, our brewhouse (the equipment that makes the pre-fermented pre-beer juice which we call wort) at this point was enough to make 80L in one turn, and we still use it today for demonstrations, brew experiences and testing new recipes.

Then came COVID-19. Weren’t we glad we have our source of beer! Oh, how smug we felt fending off request after request for Red Cross beer parcel donations, which clearly, legally we couldn’t, could we. But that naturally led to the pipe and the dream—would a small-scale brewery that was focussed on supplying the freshest of beer actually be viable?

Then came Thoresby and yet another garage….

Lady Manver’s garage

The history of the Dukeries where Thoresby Hall and Courtyard is situated is worthy of a separate blog, so I’ll focus here only on Lady Manvers and her garage at Thoresby Courtyard.

Born in 1889 as Marie-Louise Roosevelt Butterfield, the future Lady Manvers exhibited a passion for art at an early age. So, it was that her father, Sir Frederick Butterfield of Cliffe Castle, Yorkshire, enrolled her in the Julienne School of Art when the family moved to Paris in her teens. This Art School placed particular emphasis on developing a high standard of drawing skill, the legacy of which is evident in the portrait and figure studies she would subsequently make of the servants and gamekeepers on Thoresby Estate. It is likely that Earl Manvers had a garage built for him during the war (WW2) when the Army occupied the Courtyard; or later when the newly created Home Farm, including a herd of milking cows, was based in the Courtyard.

When the Earl died in 1955, he left his Groom and Chauffeur (Mr Vart) to look after Lady Manvers, who was not that experienced a driver. In 1973 her biggest wish was to own a Rover 2000. By then, she was driven around by the chauffeur’s widow (Mrs Vart), who preferred to drive a Hillman Minx.

So, there you have it, another garage and the perfect home for an outgrown brewery!

Bigger and shinier

We were offered the garage in 2022 as a base for our growing brewery, and we eagerly accepted, being utterly naive and replete with our produce. Thoresby Park itself is wonderful, and if you haven’t yet been, stop reading immediately and take a trip here.

Thoresby Park is the heart of Nottinghamshire. It is a lovely place to visit all year round with a continually expanding range of attractions for all the family no matter how young or old. The grounds cover over 1000 acres of rich unspoilt English countryside, and is open to the public all year round. Our friends at Google say it best:

“Whether you are visiting to enjoy the beautiful surroundings, interested in the Gallery, planning a wedding or special occasion, staging an outdoor event, there is something for everyone. Visit the Victorian Courtyard and you’ll find working crafts people, shops, licensed restaurant and coffee shop, military museum and the acclaimed Gallery featuring regional, national and international artists.”

We raised some cash, Paul dusted off his toolbar, Dave put another coal in his computer and sooner than we anticipated a bespoke brewery arrived in a shipping container just before Christmas 2022, some 10-fold larger than our pilot kit. Exciting? Yes. Scared? We were…

Simply Fresh

The build out, design, and installation of the brewery deserves an article of its own, but needless to say there were head scratching moments, life-choices questioned and a good dose of hilarity all the way. But now we are in and open and focused on delivering to you the freshest of beer though our 5 key commitments of our Simply Fresh Movement:

• Ingredients—we seek the best possible, preferably local
• Methods and Equipment—we do everything to maintain quality and make the best beer we can
• Control—we exercise control over how the beer turns out
• Brewer’s Spirit—we reflect our personalities, warts and all, to achieve something special
• Company Structure—we, the brewery, call the shots, not the marketing department (when we have one!)

Come over and see for yourself, and remember, life is too short to drink poor beer, that would simply be a waste of time, money and liver capacity! Stay Fresh. Tuck out.