Shivering Sands, Manston

Shivering Sands Brewery was formed in December 2019 by Margate resident Gary Gould, and like many small and medium sized enterprises it is family run business. Based in a newly built business park near Manston Airport which they moved into in March 2020, its start unfortunately coincided with the challenges of the Covid19 outbreak.

Gary Gould, owner and brewer

The brewery name and logo reference the Maunsell sea forts north of Herne Bay, which were built during the Second World War. Gary explained “I’m passionate about history and wanted a name that was unique and local… Our ethos is we know we can’t brew a beer that suits everyone, but we didn’t want to make beer that nobody will buy. If you make a good pint I think many people will buy it. I do like our Maunsell bitter which is named after the fort’s designers. The sea forts had spotlights and anti-aircraft guns, and in the mid 1960’s were even used for a pirate radio station”. Gary has a career background as an engineer designing small 20mw gas fired power stations. These stations are used to provide supplemental electricity when power-dips occur from wind and solar generation.

Maunsell Bitter 4%ABV

The initial brewing kit was from Lytham St Annes and the floor had to be levelled for it and covered with an anti-slip surface, this anti-slip Gary reported soon started failing and coming off and it was quite expensive. That first kit has now been upgraded with two 1,000 litre fermenting vessels from China. “I will not be using a consultant to set it up as I’m an engineer. I’m not afraid of welding.”

Set over two floors the brewery and tap room have some 2,000m2 of floor space, though the upstairs at first had no electricity and setting up the 3-phase electricity for the brewing kit all caused a delay. There are future plans for the brewery building. The unit came with a metal roller-shutter at the front which Gary is keen to replace with some nice high doors with plenty of glass in to improve natural lighting. There is also an alleyway at the side which can be used to place an outside chiller unit/cellar and to create a small fenced-off yard for storing casks. Upstairs there’s a plan for a much bigger bar area and perhaps even a pool table.

But what about the beer? “Our beers are not filtered or fined. I do like the basic infusion method of brewing rather than the European style (which has variations on removing part of the mash-grains and water and moving this to a second container for further boil). I do like dark beer and our Ribersborg Stout is now ready. It’s named after the ship that collided with and knocked down one of the sea forts in 1963 and is 4.5% ABV.

I’m trained by Dave Porter from Manchester who runs the Outstanding Brewery. I did used to do a little home brewing but am now doing a lot on our small pilot/test kit, if I used our big kit, thanks to Covid, what would I do with all that beer? The big difference between a small kit and a larger one is critical mass. The yeasts do create a small amount of heat as they work, on a large kit this heat can be created faster than it can dissipate meaning – a build-up of heat, and the yeast can end up cooking itself - so cooling is needed. But on a small kit keeping them warm is what’s wanted. We do have a heat exchanger which is the two plate kind that came with the St Annes kit. The resulting warm water goes to our liquor tank.

We’ve got dark malts on the go at the moment which I do like.” Are you using any peat-smoked malt? “No, I don’t want the beer to taste like a fire grate. Perhaps next year we will make a blackberry stout with locally picked fruit. I’m also planning to make a black IPA. I like an IPA fired up with hops, I am a bit of a hop-head but we don’t green-hop and prefer to use two or three hops per brew to play with the profile.”.

The beers produced so far are:

• Wild Man of Goodenstone – Bitter, 4.0%
• Golden Sands – Ultra IPA, 4.8%
• Spring Tide, 4.8%
• Maunsell Bitter, 3.7% (now 4.0%)
• Sea Forts Bitter, 4.7%
• Ribersborg Stout, 4.5%
• Hazy Dayz, 3.8%

The cask colours on the Publicans Association register will be pale blue.

Shivering Sands,
91 Maple Leaf Business Park,
Manston,
RAMSGATE,
CT12 5GD

WhatPub: https://whatpub.com/pubs/THA/243/shivering-sands-brewery-tap-room-manston

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Published: 1st November 2020.