Media City’s Hideaway Breweries

Lorraine Worsley Carter visits the The Hideaway Brewing Co in Salford Quays to learn all things craft beer.

As those who know me or have read about some of my visits to Champagne cellars across France and Cava cellars in Spain will know, I very much enjoy those grape bubbles in a flute glass.

Recently I was invited to the BBC Club’s big birthday. The BBC Club began 100 years ago in London and, like many current and former BBC staff and freelancers, I am pleased to be a member. While the Club might not have racked up 100 years in the North, for its many years in Manchester and now in Salford, Lizzie Dignam has ably managed it. Both Lizzie’s and her late husband’s names are synonymous with the BBC Club in the North, and I was pleased to attend the celebrations with my husband, Bob.

The event was to take place in a craft beer brewery around the corner from Media City, Salford. As I had never been inside a brewery, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to do so. I had read that the July moon is known as ‘The Malt Moon’, so I took this as a good omen.

I expected the brewery to be a cold, uninviting place, probably a bit dark. “Where will we sit?” I wondered.

I loved the name on the side of the building – The Hideaway Brewing Co – because who knew there was a brewery just minutes’ walk from Media City? This was my first learning curve because, on further research, I found a map of craft breweries that are based around Salford Quays and beyond.

On this occasion, however, it was the owners of Hideaway that I would ask to educate me on all things craft beer.

On entering the building, I soon became aware that a brewery can be an inviting place to visit. The craft beer making vessels (at that point I did not know their proper titles) stood bright, shiny and silver-coloured to my left. There were rows of metal barrels and, surprisingly, there was an on-brand colour scheme of black and orange in the seating area.

The look was completed with some cool artwork on the walls, a set of drums and the all-important bar with names of the craft beers over the top. The list included such names as American Pale, California Common, Rooster, Bullfrog and, even Pineapple Wheat. How exotic!

The owners, Dan Wright and his wife Nat, were busy serving customers, but Dan very kindly took the time to share their brewery’s story, and to explain to me just how some of various colours of craft beer being imbibed by customers came to be.

No doubt Dan will shudder at my grasp of brewing, but here goes. Craft beer is made through a process called brewing, which involves several key steps. First off is “malting”, where the barley grains are soaked in water and allowed to germinate. Once they start to sprout, they are dried in a kiln. This process develops the enzymes that will later convert the grain’s starches into sugars.

Next up is “Mashing”, where the malted barley is mixed with hot water to create a mash. This activates the enzymes, converting the starches in the grain into fermentable sugars. The result is a sweet liquid called wort.

The wort is boiled, and hops are added. Hops are flowers that give beer its bitterness, flavour, and aroma. Boiling also sterilises the wort to ensure a clean fermentation process.
Fermentation happens next, where the boiled wort is cooled and transferred to a fermentation vessel. Yeast is added, which eats the sugars in the wort and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. This process can take from a few days to a few weeks.

After fermentation, the beer is often conditioned, which means it is left to mature. This can be done in the same vessel or in bottles or kegs. Conditioning helps develop the beer’s flavours, and can also carbonate it naturally.

Once the beer has matured, it is packaged into bottles, cans, or kegs for distribution and enjoyment.

So, craft beer is made by carefully turning grains into a delicious, bubbly drink through a series of steps that involve cooking, fermenting, and conditioning. Each step is crucial to making the beer taste exactly right!

I asked Dan just why he decided to turn grains into craft beer – how did his story begin? Like many of us, Dan has changed careers dramatically during his professional life, but the homebrewing was constant from early adulthood. Following years in hospitality, Dan faced redundancy and so retrained, adding to his degree by attending university at night, gaining CIPD accreditation and being offered a job in HR. Dan continued his education in order to take his Masters while working in the corporate sector and then, in 2020 Covid hit. Nat was pregnant and Dan decided it was time to take his hobby out of his garage and into the world.

After acquiring all the necessary licenses, Dan took his craft beer to produce markets, and his craft beer quickly attracted aficionados. At that time, he used a third-party brewery and produced his beer in cans. Feedback was good and, in 2022, Dan and Nat procured the lease on a warehouse on Salford Quays. Working day and night, they turned it into their own brewery, naming it the Hideaway Brewing Co. As Dan explained, “Craft brewing had been my hideaway in the garage for many years, so the name seemed appropriate. Our Salfordian family emblem has always been the fox, hence Rusty the Fox being on our branding.”

Hideaway has not stayed hidden for long, with their cans bearing the fox emblem being seen as far as Sheffield and the Lake District. The barrels are dispatched to catering customers nearer to home, as they must be returned and cleaned before reuse.
So, what next for Dan and Nat? They tell me a food offering begins this week, and they insist it will be “on brand”.

Having received my first lesson in craft brewing, I have realised there is so much to learn; I have only touched the surface of the magic that makes the foaming liquid.

Sadly, my education is complete as, for me, my bubbles will always be the ones in a flute glass. However, I left the brewery with a respect for craft beer and its brewers everywhere!