GAVIN AITCHISON goes back to basics at Yorkshire’s hidden brewery.

BREWERIES these days often resemble high-tech laboratories. Dials, gauges and computer systems abound, ever alert to any unplanned variation.

In fact, visit some of the most famous companies’ sites, and you might not see any liquid at all – just vast, sealed tanks, wired up to monitors and keypads galore.

In one innocuous little corner of East Yorkshire though, something of a retro-revolution is taking place. One of the region’s newest and most exciting brewers is creating a marriage of the old and the new, putting his modern-day knowledge and enthusiasm to use on one of the most rudimentary and rustic set-ups you could hope to find.

Here, electronic gadgetry and computerisation are nowhere to be seen. It’s all about trial and error, the conditions on the day, genuine craftsmanship and a slice of good fortune.

The project is an intriguing collaboration between Phil Saltonstall, from Pocklington’s Brass Castle Brewery, and Lord Halifax of the sprawling Garrowby Estate.

There, in an unremarkable barn in a secret location (Phil’s keen to maintain security), a traditional Victorian brew kit had been gathering dust.

Until now, it had been used only once a year, the team from Samuel Smith’s in Tadcaster coming over each summer to brew a beer with, and for, those staying on the estate.

But now, thanks to Phil and his assistant Ian Goodall, this beautifully simple and charming apparatus is enjoying a whole new lease of life. In return for a lick of paint and some general maintenance, they have been given access to the equipment, allowing them to increase their own output far above what was possible in Phil’s garage and – more excitingly – to experiment with new recipes on an age-old kit.

I was privileged to see it all first hand when I joined them last Monday, along with beer blogger David Bishop and York pub landlord Paul Marshall. It was tremendous fun and entirely hands-on, a million miles from the experience of so many modern breweries.

The open-topped copper kettle on the upper floor of the barn looked like a giant fairytale cauldron, steam billowing every which way. I felt like a sorcerer’s apprentice as I perched on the edge, struggling to see through my misty glasses, and stirring away at Phil’s magical potion. If he’d told me to throw in some eye of newt, along with the fuggles hops, it wouldn’t have seemed out of place.

Phil and Ian were busier still, dashing up and down the stairs ad infinitum, hooking up filters and pipes, leaping to and fro, cleaning out the kit, and diligently inspecting the beer every step of the way.

The vintage milk-cooling pipes, salvaged from an old dairy, were the most captivating piece of all, the wort gradually working its way over and through them, before trickling into the drum below.

The passion and effort involved shone through with every passing drop, and Phil beamed each time he poured off a sample. If Willy Wonka had gone into micro-brewing instead of chocolate, this is the kind of place he’d have dreamt up.

Phil scooped three awards at York Beer Festival within weeks of his launch last year, so clearly knows his stuff, but he readily admits that on such an old kit, more exposed to the elements and devoid of precision instruments, there are plenty of pitfalls lurking. With every dollop of hops comes an equally big one of hope. But the rewards are fantastic.

“The process is stripped back to its bare essentials,” he says. “We don’t have the facility to simply dial in temperatures and quantities and then step back behind a control panel. We have to be fully engaged, keeping a beady eye on what’s happening at every stage. And, wonderfully, we get to see the magic of the brewing process in motion.”

It is, he says, a privilege to use such historic equipment. But the real joy is in its simplicity. It will take a number of brews before he and Ian can confidently claim to have mastered the kit, he says. But you sense that, in the meantime, the experimentation will not be a chore.

• If Monday’s brew has been a success, it should be hitting a few local bars within the next few days, labelled as Brass Castle Garrowby 1. Look out for it in The Sun Inn at Pickering, The Waggon and Horses in York, the Goodmanham Arms near Market Weighton and The Feathers in Pocklington, for starters.

Follow Gav on twitter @pintsofview for beery news and views all week.