Tolly Cobbold - Cliff Brewery - Urban Exploration in Ipswich, Suffolk

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• Contents
• Outside
• Loading area
• Barrelling area
• Offices & Laboratory
• Blue room
• Copper
• Mash Tun
• Hop Room
• Malt Mill
• The Roof
• Bottles
• Other stuff

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Thomas Cobbold opened his first brewery in Harwich in 1723. The water there was rather salty, which didn't make for a good ale. So he shipped it in from Ipswich - just up ther river. In 1746 he left Harwich and built a brewery in Ipswich.

In 1894 he (well, his descendants) rebuilt the brewery to meet increased demands - there were over 300 public houses in Ipswich at the time.

After a few name changes/mergers, it closed in 1989, only to re-open in 1990 after a successful management buyout. The brewery started brewing again, and in 1996 celebrated it's 250th anniversary - quite an acheivement! After the buyout, it was also opened up as a working museum to try and improve it's profitability. In 2002 it finally closed (again) and the wonderful machinery inside has succumbed to pigeon droppings There are rumours of re-opening it though...

Outside

This neo-Gothic building looks amazing. It was built by Cobbold's own people rather than local builders - he trusted them more.

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Loading area

This was the first area we saw - our trip was, seemingly, the brewing process in reverse.

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Barrelling area

This will be where they filled barrels up with ale. I'm not quite sure what the nautical-style wheels were for.

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Offices & Laboratory

The Head Brewer's office, and some laboratories used for testing the produce.

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Blue room

This room was really unusual - you can probably see why in the pics below - it was blue! There were around nine fermentation vats in here. The blue tint is there because it is believed direct sunlight can effect the brewing process - this is also why ale can usually be found in brown or green bottles.

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Copper

I don't even know what this is, but they're called "coppers" and are instrumental in the brewing process. I think hops are put into them for some reason.

The short fat one on stilts is "an original boiling copper from the Harwich brewery of 1723, used as a sugar dissolving vessel at the Cliff Brewery".

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I'm beginning to love control rooms - everywhere I go they seem different.

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Mash Tun

The mash tun, in which the starch and the ground malt or grist was broken down into sugars.

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Hop Room

This room was like a mini museum in itself. All about hops; how they're grown; what they do; what viruses they get; what they look like etc. Quite interesting stuff.

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Malt Mill

The malt mill at the Cliff Brewery in which the carefully selected malts were ground for the next day's brew.

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The Roof

Splendid views of Ipswich docks were to be had from up here. There was also a rather nice windvane dating back to when the building was built - 1894.

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Bottles

Being an old brewery, there must've been some sort of old beer lying around - right? Right!

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Other stuff

These bits don't quite fit in anywhere...

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