January March 2020 Magazine - Microsoftbtckstorage.blob.core.windows.net/site500/Magazine/2020/... · 2020. 3. 24. · Magazine. 1st January — 31st March 2020 Page No 1 January—March

Heart of England U3A, Stratford-upon-Avon Website: www.heartofenglandu3a.btck.co.uk

Magazine. 1st January — 31st March 2020 Page No 1

January—March 2020 Magazine Issue 27

Editor: Edwin Lilly

Email: edwin [email protected]

Welcome to the January to March 2020 edition of our Magazine. This issue runs from 1st January to 31st March 2020 and is an archive of some of our activities. The cover picture is always something in the district during the last few months, this time the new Christmas lights in Bridge Street.

Reports include:

• Walking Group — January

• New Year Lunch—January

• Main Meeting—February

• Walking Group—February

• SNATTs visit to Hook Norton Brewery, February

• Walking Group - March

Last update: 12th March 2020

Christmas Lights in Bridge Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, December 2019.



Walking Group Wednesday 8th January 2020

Walk around Stratford-upon-Avon

Fourteen members of the group met at the Gower Memorial in Bancroft Gardens for our walk around Stratford.

The walk was less than 5 miles this time as the ground conditions were quite wet and we decided to keep the walk to a short one and to keep to hard paths.

The weather for the walk was quite pleas-ant and we all enjoyed the exercise.

Future walks during the winter months will be all be on hard paths either in or near

Stratford. We have room for more mem-bers and if you have any favourite walks please bring along details and we may be able to feature them in future months.

Report and photograph from

Valerie Redfern.

Group Photograph on Bancroft Gardens.



New Year Lunch Saturday 18th January 2020

Stratford-upon-Avon Sports Club

Sixty odd members of Heart of England U3A gathered at the Stratford-upon-Avon Sports Club to start the New Year with a celebratory lunch. The chef, Carl, had pre-pared a tasty three course lunch which we all sat down to and enjoyed. Athena had or-ganised the event with help from Sue Tring-ham (liaison with the Club), Robyn Nicoll (Menus and place cards), David Haggarty (sound system).

There was a general knowledge quiz, written by Athena and undertaken between the main and dessert courses. Winning score was 16 out of 20 and the winning table re-ceived a bottle of bubbly!

Thanks were given to Athena from those present as this was her last New Year Lunch. She has organised the event for above ten years and is taking a well earned rest.

Below and on following pages are photo-graphs of the tables.

Athena is pictured right talking to the members present via the sound system.



New Year Lunch (continued) Saturday 18th January 2020


More table photographs from the lunch













Main Meeting Thursday 6th February 2020 Andy Smith and his music

We were pleased to welcome Andy Smith for a second visit to HoE in Stratford and to listen to his music. He brought several guitars and other string instruments and enter-tained us with a selection of songs differing in type and tempo, some of which he had written and some that had impressed him when they were first performed by other, more famous, singers.

He had his first guitar during his teens and has enjoyed playing and writing all of his adult life. Over the years he has acquired several more instruments and brought with him a guitar, a flat backed mandolin, a tenor guitar (4 strings like a banjo), an American guitar by Ovation, a guitar he calls Elvis, and a ukulele. He used them all to accompany

himself as he sang. Andy invited us to sing along to the tunes we know, which added to the enjoyment of the afternoon.

We had a thoroughly good time and thanked him with applause dur-ing and at the end of his performance.

I am sure we will see him again in the future.



Main Meeting Thursday 6th February 2020

Andy Smith and his music (continued)



Walking Group Wednesday 12th February 2020

Walk around Ilmington

Ten members of the group met in Ilmington for our walk around the local area.

The walk was about 5 miles on firm ground and roads. We find this the preferred poli-cy at this time of the year. And the weath-er had been pretty wet during February so far. However, the weather for the walk was quite pleasant and we all enjoyed the exer-

cise.

We have room for more members and if you have any favourite walks please bring along details and we may be able to feature them in future months. If you would like to be included in the group and hear about future walks please give Valerie or Fred a ring and provided them with an email address. De-tails of the walk are usually published in the Newsletter.

Group Photographs taken during the walk.



Science, Nature & all Things Technical Group Visit to Hook Norton Brewery Friday 14th February 2020

Twenty one members of our SNATTs Group made their way through the lanes to Hook Norton to visit the Victorian Tower Brew-ery which has been making beer for almost 200 years. The guided tour was timed for eleven o’clock so many of us gave ourselves plenty of time for the trip and arrived early and could partake of a restorative cup of tea or coffee in the café/restaurant in the Visitor Centre. We also could book lunch for after the tour.

The Brewery pictured above.

John Harris bought a 52 acre farm in Hook Norton in 1849. This included a malthouse and the previous owner of the farm had traded as a maltster. John Harris contin-ued this trade and also expanded into trad-ing in hops. I 1856 he appears to have com-

menced commercial brewing in the buildings that he had. The present tower brewery building was constructed 1872 and further adapted and enlarged as time passed to ac-commodate the expanding business. The business has been run by the same family since 1849 until the present.

We had a comprehensive tour, including the grist preparation (malted barley (mostly pale ale malt) is mixed with any other grains according to the recipe being used and then passed through a grist mill which cracks open the grains. These are put into a mash tun with the required amount of water and then heated to extract the sugars from the grain. When the mash is complete the liquor is drained off the grains and the grains sprayed with hot water or liquor to com-plete extraction of the sugars.

The liquor passes to the hop boiler where the required hop mixture is added and the complete mixture boiled for a period to ex-tract the bittering and flavouring agents, and to ensure the beer is free from harmful bacteria. The wort (unfermented beer) is passed through a modern heat exchanger where the wort is cooled to a temperature where the yeast can work on the sugars to produce alcohol. Heat extracted is used to heat further batches of water going into the mash tun. We did see a very old open air cooler which is no longer used—see pho-tograph.

The previous steps all occur within 24 hours, followed by fermentation which takes 3—4 days.

We looked into all the production areas ex-



Science, Nature & all Things Technical Group Visit to Hook Norton Brewery (continued)

Friday 14th February 2020

cept for the fermenting floor, where there is a risk of contamination of the brew.

The brewery is on several floors and the stairs between are steep and hard work.

Stable for Shire horses—above is Com-mander. Below is Lucas.

The next photograph is of the dray wagon with some stray personages loitering.

The horses and dray deliver to local pubs in Hook Norton during the week.

Below is a steam engine which used to power some of the equipment and to raise water from a borehole to a tank in the roof. Now the power is replaced by electric motors. The next photograph is of some water lift-ers that the steam engine powered to raise the water from the borehole. That bore-hole is not used now as its capacity was lim-ited and more, deeper boreholes are used from further away from the brewery, still on brewery land.



Science, Nature & all Things Technical Group Visit to Hook Norton Brewery (continued)

Friday 14th February 2020

Below is the open tray cooler that is no longer used.

We also saw the packing room where the beer was put into casks, kegs, or similar. Some beer is also bottled or canned but not on site.

Altogether, it was a very interest-ing and enjoyable tour, ending with a taste of the end product in a small bar in the bowels of the brewery.



Walking Group Wednesday 11th March 2020

Walk around Shipston-on-Stour

Twelve members of the group met at Ship-ston on Stour for a 5 mile walk on hard paths and roads, mostly with very low level of traffic. The weather was perfect with little cloud and much sunshine.

We stopped for a break at Birmington Church where there are some picnic benched in the extra church yard.

The route followed a roughly circular route through two or three villages and along qui-et country roads and provided a perfect walk for the darker days of winter cum spring. There were definite signs of spring about in the hedgerows, fields and gardens as we walked along.

Thanks to Valerie for the report and photo-graph

Walking Group at coffee time in Birmington extra church yard

Documents

January March 2020 Magazine - Microsoftbtckstorage.blob.core.windows.net/site500/Magazine/2020/... · 2020. 3. 24. · Magazine. 1st January — 31st March 2020 Page No 1 January—March