Forging a new brewery in Llanelli

With a big weekend of rugby ahead of us I thought I’d turn my sights away from the Capital, but to an area no less rugby obsessed where there’s a new microbrewery combining beer and the town’s local heritage.

Throughout South Wales there are various hotbeds of brewing with Cardiff and Swansea seeming like they have a new micro-brewery every week, and even the small seaside town of Tenby boasts two breweries.   However, although there are now over 100 breweries in Wales Llanelli has been a bit of a barren ground with only Felinfoel Brewery flying the brewing flag.

Llanelli, once known as “Tinopolis” due to the many tinplate works belching out smoke into the atmosphere, now has a new aroma filling the air, but this time from malts and hops!   Tinworks is a relatively new brewery which combines the old with the new with the aim of bringing the beer scene in Llanelli up to the 21^st century.   Taking inspiration from the craft breweries across the pond they aim to forge American style beers with a Welsh twist.

We caught up with Matthew Stevenson, one of 2 brothers who joined forces to create Tinworks Brewing Co.   He explained that they started with a simple core of 3 beers named after old tinplate works in the area.  The ruby red hoppy Marshfield Red is in honour of the Marshfield Works, the light coloured but heavy on flavour Old Castle in memory of the Old Castle, and our personal favourite the strong, tropical and fruity Dafen IPA remembering the old Dafen tinplate works.   Since then they have added the Kidwelly Pilsner which is one of their most popular beers with demand outstripping supply and they have a very exciting Ashburnham Porter in the pipeline.

Brewing has been in the family with their grandfather being a keen homebrewer, after he passed away Matthew inherited his equipment and before long he found himself being nagged to sell it!  However, launching any business carries a certain risk so they initially started brewing in their parents converted garage.   Matthew has had a varied career from banking, the fire service to social services, asking what prompted him to take the plunge he explained that the brewery isn’t his only baby, the birth of his daughter influenced him to start the business in order to provide a good life for his child.

Tinworks have found demand has been great and have recently moved from brewing in the garage to the old Ffos-y-ffin site with a 6-barrel kit.

“We wanted to bring Llanelli’s history back into the forefront of people’s minds,” Matthew added.  Some people think Llanelli is quite a rough area but we want to bring it back to where it was and show people that it’s a nice place to live. There’s a bit of history on the bottles so when people drink it they can have a read too.”

To drive the business Tinworks have fully embraced social media and have a weekly vlog on their YouTube channel showing everything from the brewing process to storing the beer to how it’s distributed.  Wales Ales was first introduced to Tinworks via popular YouTube Blogger The Inebriologist who was keen to promote their virtues-

“I’ve known about Tinworks since Matt started the company a about a couple of years ago. As a homebrewer myself, I did exchange a couple of homebrew beers with him and I tried a couple of his prototypes which eventually became the end product that’s available today. The range of beers on offer are great and it’s fantastic to see that the beer has made its way up as far as Cardiff and Newport in cask, keg and even bottle form.”

You can find their beers all over South Wales via many pubs and bottle shops, Wales Ales were the first stockists outside of their area but since then they’ve featured in popular Cardiff pubs St Cannas and Cathays Beer House, and closer to home in the likes of Stradey Park Hotel and Maddocks General Store to name a few.  You can also search on their website with a very helpful guide to find your local stockist.

To keep with the rugby theme Tinworks have recently announced that they will be sponsoring local Rugby League side West Wales Raiders, so whether you are watching the local game or the international, instead of cracking open the tinnies why not try some Tinworks!