Brewing with UK hops this week!

You heard me right, UK hops....

Well hang on a minute, isn't that Fuggles & Goldings?  Erm... no, it isn't, and rest assured I'd only use those rancid bracts ironically or as part of a collab, but these are dead good UK hops, probably the two best on the market at the moment.... Olicana and Jester.

Both are products of the Charles Faram breeding programme and both show very un-UK characteristics in their makeup, with Olicana having a subtle passionfruit and mango character (think Citra lite) whereas Jester have a big, brash bold soft tropical fruit hit similar to some of the New Zealand hops such as Riwaka.... so between them we should have something pretty good!

We're using "normal" UK malt (rather than the low-colour or super pale we normally use) for the brew to give a more traditional character, but that's it as far as tradition goes as we'll be piling in the hops with our normal "hop burst" approach with 95% of the copper hops going in during the last 20 minutes and a 5kg charge of dry-hop in the conditioning tanks.... 

So, here's hoping something interesting comes out of this little experiment, something distinctly British but with a new-world edge.... bring it on!!

Sorry - been busy!

Apologies for the lack of updates, but we've been really busy / away from the brewery / far too busy to update the blog / etc etc etc.....

Anyhow, I promise to update it more often in future, whenever I can, so here's a little about what we've been doing this last few weeks...

Gazza has had (and still has) manflu.... yes, that's right, even brewers get it!  This has rather drained the creative and motivational juices which is one of the reasons not much has been updated recently, amongst others... so now you know.

We had to postpone last weeks' brew of Bunker Gold owing to said manflu (and not really needing to brew) but we've brewed it today and tomorrow is the turn of perennial favourite "Citra Plus" which has finally settled on a winning recipe and, as long as the Citra hops are luscious enough, should be blasting a bar near you soon.  We've had an order from a wholesaler for 12 casks of this so may have to brew it again pretty soon afterwards!

Next week we may be having a play with the new UK Jester hops and seeing how they perform alongside something like Cascade or Chinook.

Then Gav is off for 2 weeks so Gazza will be making do on his own with random helpers to tide us over; we may have a collab to brew with Phil from Twt Lol whilst Gav is away which has been pencilled in as a Red IPA with lots of US hops, before a return collab which will be a pale brew hopped with NZ fruity hops.

More news as it happens!

20 barrels of beer and a meet the brewer!

That's this week in a nutshell!

We're brewing a "big" batch of "Temple of Love" on Tuesday as the last batch sold out in record time thus making Temple, by default, the nearest thing we have to a permanent beer in our range.... as it was originally devised as a low ABV one-off hoppy pale ale it's success has surprised us no end, but as it's well liked by the brewing team - both for it's brewing process and flavour - we're not complaining!

The second brew on Wednesday is a new one-off Oatmeal stout in remembrance of the local coal mining industry which was deliberately laid waste by Thatcher.  "Aur Du" (which translates as Black Gold in Welsh, one of the local names for coal) contains 9% oatmeal and 12% dark grains to give a big, toasty stout with a smooth edge, brewed with Polish hops to commemorate the link between our region and the coal mining area of Silesia in southern Poland which still has working coal mines, for now...

Then, on Thursday, Gazza is off up the M6 to Preston for a meet the brewer at the Moorbrook pub; these events aren't very common as Gazza is usually much too busy procrastinating to actually do any promo work, so make the most of it.... the running order should be various beers with the story behind each one, then some food - hopefully the pub's famous pies!  See you at the hop....

First they came for the Miners.....

.... and now it's the turn of the Steelworkers, albeit this time in a case of deliberate non-intervention rather than deliberate and intentional destruction, but the result will be the same; whole communities left desolate, people unemployed with no hope of finding another job, mass migration of the young to find work leaving dying communities.  We've seen it before, it'll happen again very soon, and at the hands of the Tories yet again, the party of the rich and the elite.

Anyway, to make sure the coal industry of the Valleys isn't forgotten, we're brewing an oatmeal stout in honour of those brave men who powered the industrial revolution and were then declared surplus to requirements in the shiny new world of services rather than manufacturing, and made the scapegoat of a war against the trade union movement.  

This one's for every miner and now, sadly, every steelworker.... 

The policies of this government are clear – to destroy the coal industry and the NUM. – Arthur Scargill

Brewing Oceanic....

.... is what we're doing today!  It's one of our most popular beers (and also one of the most expensive to make owing to the large amounts of Galaxy and Nelson Sauvin hops which go into it) and we don't expect it to hang around for long once it's ready....

The Pacific hops are smelling absolutely lovely and we're confident this will be the best batch of Oceanic thus far!

We've been joined by Jon from South Wales Whisky Group for a bit of brewing "experience" which, predictably, means digging the mash....