Maid of the Mill

Wheat beer (Weizen) 5.2%
Bottle conditioned, in 500 ml bottles, crown capped.
Release date July 2014.

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Brewed on: 10 June 2014 Bottled: 7 July 2014

Brewed on: 9 April 2016 Bottled: April-June 2016

This beer celebrates young Louie Jermy, the daughter of miller Jermy of Sidestrand, with whom London journalist Clement Scott stayed on his frequent visits to 'Poppyland'. He gave the Cromer area its nickname. She became a minor celebrity and was christened the 'Maid of the Mill' and also dubbed 'Louie of the Blackberry Puddings' by the writer George Sims (whose by-line was 'Dagonet'). This image was taken from the cover of late 19th century sheet music for a tune entitled 'Poppyland'.

Maid of the Mill came about through a request from Andrew and Lisa of The Cromer Farm Shop for a beer to celebrate their delightful Lakeland Terrier, Humphrey. It had to be blond and they quoted three wheat beers that they liked. So I formulated a wheat beer recipe, with Soraci Ace hops and lemongrass and fermented with a Bavarian hefeweizen yeast (WLP380). The result was sold at the farm shop as 'Sir Humphrey the Sea Dog', with a label based on a portrait of Humphrey by Lucy Boydell. For economic reasons I needed to sell some of that batch directly, so it was labelled 'Maid of the Mill' and any subsequent brews with that recipe (e.g. in October 2014) will also be so named.

Tasting notes

The temperature in the fermenter was allowed to ascend to 28.5C before switching on the cooling coil. This produced enormous quantities of the ester isovinyl quiacol (banana) and the brew looked and tasted like bananas and custard while fermeting - sweet and yellow. It quietened down as it matured and dried. The result in the bottle was a delicious light wheat beer with some banana flavour, low in hops (15 IBU) and a lemony citrus background.

Free-from

The most recent edition of this beer (2016) is not gluten free.

What the customers say

"Very pleasant hefe with all the right flavour components - albeit surprisingly clear. Should have rolled the bottle a bit ;)" Yvan, on Untappd

"Bursting with banana and citrus, with a lovely dry finish." Gary, on Untappd

Martin Warren, The Poppyland Brewer