International Women's Day: Behind the scenes at free Brewery Experience Day at Brewhouse & Kitchen Worthing

As an avid beer drinker who loves beer of all different styles, I was keen to get involved and learn more about how the delicious ales I drink are made. I knew it would be hands-on and that was one of the main attractions.

Head brewer Zac Stocker was great fun, giving us loads of useful information and lots and lots of tastings as we went through the process of brewing beer. He said: "Brewing would not be a thing without ladies."

We were making a Tropical IPA, the most popular beer at the brewpub. It is usually called King Rocker, named after Billy Idol, the rock legend who grew up in Worthing – but our International Women's Day brew will be renamed Queen Rocker to reflect the effort put in by all the women on Wednesday. It should be going on the pumps on April 26 if you fancy trying it.

Mashing is the first part of the brewing process, where crushed grains are mixed with water to form a porridge-like mixture. I helped pour in the pale ale malt mixture. Weighing in at 25kg a bag, it was extremely heavy but I just about managed to manoeuvre it up to pour it into the mash tun.

Munich Malt was also added, in smaller quantities, to give the beer light caramel notes. We helped stir in the grains and the more we poured in, the hard it was to get the mixture going but we got there in the end. Calcium Chloride Flakes were put in because the water in Worthing is hard and we wanted the beer to be more malty and sweet.

At this stage, the mix smelled amazing! In the mash tun, the mixture is heated and the water is circulated to ensure an even temperature. All the brewing software is on Zac's phone and there was a lot of time spent getting the temperature and the water balance right to release the sugars – a process that takes a while. Zac pointed out: "Brewing is a lot of waiting. It is about ten per cent brewing and the rest is cleaning and waiting around."

The next stage is pumping the liquid into the copper kettle for boiling to create the wort – a kind of liquid porridge. At this stage it is very sweet, as we discovered when we were given a taste. Zac showed us how he tests the sugar levels to decide how long the boil needs. After the first bittering hops were added, a whirlpool helped to settle the solids and separate the oil. As the liquid was drawn off, we could see it through a side glass and Zac was pleased to say it was a nice light colour, just what we wanted.

The smell became very different now, much less sweet. When the time was right, we helped weigh out the hop pellets, citrusy Palisade and fragrant Mosaic, to pour into the kettle. Zac said: "This is the kind of job where it is full of big, strong smells." He let us sniff the natural passionfruit flavouring that he said he would add in a couple of days and it was so delicious. He then gave us a taster of King Rocker and you could really taste that passionfruit.

All this time, the mash tun had been cooling and it was finally safe for us to clean it out. Several of us got stuck in, including me. There was so much grain to pull out! Zac said they are started to look at ways to use it and they are trialing making dog treats to sell on the bar.

The liquid was eventually transferred to the fermenter and a heat exchanger was used to bring the temperature down before the yeast could be added. A final sugar test gave just the right reading to confirm our beer will be the correct strength. I can't wait to try it!