lazy post

yep, this is possibly the laziest blog post ever!  A link to another blog!!

This is a write up by my long suffering brewers widow, all about our experiences in Newcastle last weekend when we took part in a beer and food pairing event.  Eight of our beers matched with eight, yes eight courses!

Find out all about it at http://ginsoak.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/bacchus-to-the-future/

Cheers!

busy busy busy

It’s been a while since i last bogged of my exploits running the brewery.  It’s been a busy time…

Late October saw us man the bar at the Steel City Beer Festival in Sheffield where we sold Ginger Daze, Hop Ripper IPA, Slaker Pale Ale, St Petrus Stout and our festival special Raisin to Live a 7% black chocolate raisin stout. Yum.  St Petrus won best stout of the festival and also joint Silver in the champion beer of the festival awards. 

The onset of man flu and the brewery courtyard being dug up didn’t help much in such a hectic time but with the flu all but gone and a new level tarmac courtyard i can again concentrate on making beer.  In the last month or so i have started to help Steel City Brewing test brew.  This is a new start-up brewery brewing on my kit (cookoo brewers) and their first brew Hop Manifesto went down a treat at pubs across the nation. It appeared all over Sheffield and as far away as Oxford, Newcastle and Worcester.  The next test brew will take place in mid November and should be in the pubs by December.  I have also brewed Autumnus Porter spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon and a Belgian Dubbel called Tantalus 6.5% which was for the Battle of the Beer competition at the Chesterfield Market Beer Festival.  That is all sold now and i have to say it was a great ale.  Sheffield & District CAMRA chairman called it ‘a beast of a beer’ and The Reluctant Scooper, who named the beer,  described it as a ’smooth Westmalle’. Praise indeed. 

I have just delivered 27 assorted casks to The Bacchus in Newcastle who will be hosting a Brew Co beer and Food Festival on Sunday the 8th November.  Seven hand pumps will feature my beers and the chef is cooking a seven course meal with my beers accompanying each course.  I’ll be on hand to talk dinners and drinkers through the beer selection as well as sampling the ale and stuffing my face with their fine food.

Tuesday the 24th of November sees us resurrect Beer Styles Night at the Devonshire Cat pub in Sheffield.  This time we will be focusing on dark strong real ales and for eight quid drinkers will get to sample 6 beers with a tutored tasting by myself and Ben Tysoe the bar manager.  The nights are always great fun with like-minded drinkers gathering to discuss beer and breweries and taste some fine ales.

Speaking of the Devonshire Cat pub, several bar staff will be attending our brewery on Wednesday 25th to brew their very own Christmas beer.  The actual beer is a secret so you will have to go in and buy a pint which will be on the pumps from mid December.  Needless to say it will be different to the normal offering and it will be damn tasty!

 

For what it’s worth…

I have a few opinions to air about today’s news on alcohol related stories.  Firstly the Sunday Times reports that the region of Greater Manchester is to become the first in England to impose minimum prices for alcohol sold in its supermarkets, pubs and off-licences in an attempt to tackle binge drinking.   Now i have no problem with stemming the tide of drunkenness especially where young binge drinkers are concerned.  Although, haven’t youngsters always binge drunk alcohol?  When i was a youth we used to pub crawl around town three or four nights a week until we were so drunk the bouncers wouldn’t let us in.  This still happens today, always has, always will.  Its how we learn, by experience and mistakes.  The brewer Brewdog of course made a protest brew called Nanny State, a 1.1%ABV hoppy beer, well more like water in my opinion, but it was well done and hit the spot with drinkers who talked about the reason behind it, Tokyo the 18% beer they earlier brewed which was slated by the Portman group.  It is hard to see where the nanny statedness of it all will end, if regions are allowed to start setting minimum prices surely they will become bereft of breweries and independent local pubs. 

The Mail on Sunday reports that “all eyes will be on the Office of Fair Trading, which will decide whether a complaint made by real ale lobby group CAMRA about the validity of the beer tie has any merit. Industry trade body the BBPA believes abolition of the tie would ’sound the death knell of regional and local brewers across the country”  What a load of old tosh!  Look around you.  With the exception of MacSpoons (and their success is because they are free of tie) which national pub co appears to be doing well?  I will not mention any names but we know who the two main ones are and they are failing miserably.  Turn your attention then to the local free of tie, independently owned real ale pub.  These are flourishing and will continue to do so.  Ta ta pub co’s, your days are numbered, thank God.

Changing Seasons

We are now slipping through Autumn and summer seems just a distant memory now.  I noticed last night it was dark at 6.15!  Soon we will all be going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark.  I have contracted a bad case of man flu which, as we all know is twice as bad as a common head cold suffered by women.  I feel lethargic and restless and cannot breath properly and what is worse i don’t really feel like drinking beer! 

There is one good thing to come out of the changing seasons though – winter ales.  Last week i brewed a Belgian dubbel (6.5%ABV) made with copious quantities of dark crystal malt for those dark prune flavours exhibited by beers like Chimay.  The Belgian ale yeast i use has given the beer an air of authenticity and tastes typically Belgian, almost aniseed.  Next up i brewed Autumnus (4.7%ABV) which is a porter and as the name suggests is very autumnal in character.  Dark brown/red in appearance it is spiced with cinnamon sticks, nutmeg powder and just a hint of fresh root ginger.  It smells and tastes like an autumn style cake like Parkin. 

Next week i intend to brew the multi award-winning stout St Petrus (5%ABV) but i will not be forsaking the lighter side of ale ands will also brew Slaker Pale Ale and the light golden Ginger Daze.  My thoughts now turn towards Christmas and the staff from the Devonshire Cat pub will be coming to brew their own Christmas special.  I am also working on a project with Sheffield Hallam University where students will design and brew a beer specifically for other students based on market research they carried out.  Running a small craft brewery is hard work and there is never any spare time, but i love it.  So join me in a dark winter ale and lets ride out the rough weather together.  Cheers!

State of the ark

I recently heard a fellow brewer call his new brewery ’state of the ark’ which made me smile in agreement with him. If you go on our website at http://www.thebrewcompany.co.uk/the-brewery.php you will see pictures of the brew house.  Now don’t think that this brew kit is cheap, because it wasn’t,  but basic it is.  Brew kit is very simple, a hot water tank where the water is heated before being pumped onto the malted barley grains in the mash tun which is just an insulated stainless steel vessel. Once the enzymes have done their work and converted the starches in the malt to sugars the resulting sweet liquid wort is drained into the copper, which is just a big kettle.  Simples.  With the addition of a few bits of kit like a grain hopper and auger feed to get the grain into the mash tun, an automatic underback to pump the wort from mash tun to copper and a heat exchanger to cool the wort to fermenting temperature, that is as technologically advanced as it gets!  The real magic of course is done by our little friends Saccharomyces Cerevisiae – the brewer’s yeast. They convert the sugars from the malt into alcohol and CO2 and impart a range of flavours to the finished beer. 

I’ve just had three cask ale beer engine hand pumps refurbished as the seal in the cylinders had eroded. Studying what had gone wrong with the pump engineer made me think how ’state of the ark’ these amazing beer pumps are.  They haven’t really changed since being invented by the locksmith and engineer Joseph Bramah in 1797.  I used a beer engine to dispense my Slaker Pale Ale at the Steel City Beer Festival in Sheffield recently that was made in 1982. I was 13 when that pulled its first pint!  I also hear of breweries starting up with second hand coppers, mash tuns and fermenting vessels  which are decades old.  As are casks which, can last for over 30 years if treated right.

It’s nice to know that brewing cask ale may have advanced in terms of ingredients and efficiencies of production but it is still brewed, fermented, stored and served in the same way it has been for hundreds of years.  I’m glad i work without the threat of having to upgrade to the next technological advancement which is always just around the corner.