Beer research
Entry posted by Phil Parker
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The current beer-themed issue of BRM includes a piece on the National Brewery Centre in Burton-on-Trent. Andy York and I spent a fantastic afternoon with the team behind the museum and I can wholeheartedly recommend it as somewhere well worth a visit.
I took the train to Burton and local(ish) lad Andy picked me up from the station. With a few hours to kill before we were due at the museum, we drove around looking for interesting old buildings to photograph.
The first is the Midland warehouse beside the station. Now a hotel, it's been restored but still looks the part. There are some interesting buildings out front, hidden from the trains. One is obviously a weighbridge hut, but I wonder what the others were?
A bonded warehouse is still operational and apparently still has many original features inside. I say apparently because the security guards didn't want to let us inside for a look around. Maybe we don't have sufficiently honest faces, or just looked thirsty!
On the edge of town there are several old industrial premises that have been converted in to offices. If you ignore the air conditioning units and other modern additions, the fabric of the building still survives and some of the detail is worth noting for inclusion in other models.
Lunchtime arrived and Burton being a town of breweries, we stopped off at one of the smaller ones – Burton Bridge Brewery. A quick pint and delicious ham roll later, we headed off to the museum.
I'd arranged for us to meet the volunteers who look after the N gauge railway model, our plan being to take some new pictures of it. As far as anyone remembers, the last time it appeared in print was very soon after installation in 1985. Since then the museum has closed, changed hands and re-opened. Trackwork on the model has been replaced and a number of new locos built by the team.
Initially, they were a little nervous about letting Andy wave cameras around. The model lives in a glass display case for protection and although we could have the doors on this slid open, dangling cameras over the cardboard buildings wasn't allowed.
After a few pictures were taken using the camera on a tripod, confidence had grown and the camera found its way carefully in between some of the structures for close up shots. The model is fabulously detailed but the best way to appreciate it is to take in the overall picture – it is a truly magnificent piece of work. I've included one of the photos below as space was a bit tight in the magazine to really do it justice - click on this one to see it as large as the RMWeb system will allow me to upload.
Station Street features a tramway and some of the numerous level crossings dotted around the town centre. Many of the scenes are taken from life, someone carried out a lot of research for this model!
Elsewhere in the museum, there are more models showing different aspects of the industry. As a boat modeller, I enjoyed the water borne craft that pre-dated railway transport. These were in cabinets near the railway, hence the reflections in the photo. Hopefully they give you an idea what there is to be seen though.
Thanks must got to the staff and volunteers at the National Brewery Centre for looking after and helping us during the visit.
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