The return of the beast.... and it's offspring!

Dark muscovado sugar isn't that easy to acquire, let me tell you.... the best place I know to buy it is at Lembas in Sheffield so when I happened to be in town delivering beer, a quick visit was in order!

Two 25kg bags of Billingtons dark Muscovado were duly acquired.  One is for "Spanish Main", our monster of a tropical stout with added sugar and peppercorns, then the other is for a new project we're planning, "Queen Anne's Revenge", which is a pale ale with the same rummy sugar (and maybe peppercorns too!) for a tropical pale ale....  if such a thing exists.  Which it does now....

So, in a couple of weeks we'll be brewing up QAR and then, at a time in the future as yet undetermined, it's bastard offspring will be brought into the world!

Big day of racking, then we brew!

This week we racked (put into cask and keg) four beers, which even allowing for the casks being pre-washed is a fairly big job for a day when you take into account all the other stuff we have to do on a day to day basis too!

Anyhow, we now have March of the Giants 5.1%, We Come in Peace 4.4%, Grudge Match 6 3.9% and Waen Chilli Plum Porter 5.5% all packaged and ready for sale... I say ready for sale but around 50% of that lot has been sold already and is either out of the door or preparing to leave!

So, an easier day today brought forth the latest brew of a perennially popular beer which is being asked for more and more; shame we don't have the hops to brew it more often really!  Citra Plus was originally brewed as a one-off back in 2014 as part of the "plus" series of beers which showcased some of our favourite hops, and was then quietly forgotten.... until we began to get emails from Scotland asking for it to be brewed again!

So, never ones to shy away from pleasing our customers, we "rebooted" the recipe (note the modern parlance here, we're so yoof) in line with current hop diktats and, lo and behold, Citra+ appeared blinking from it's cocoon for a new lease of life! We've since brewed it again, and this is the third time in 4 months... someone must like it, and indeed it seems that Glasgow and Edinburgh are the target markets for this lusciously mangoey brew!  Who'd have thunk it???!!!

Latest Waen beer brewed today!

It's our third time of hosting Sue Hayward of Waen to brew her beers on our brewery, and this time there was no pressure as it was her multi award-winning Lemon Drizzle, which contains neither lemons nor drizzle it turns out....

Lots of American, German and New Zealand hops, English pale malt and yeast... that's it!  It's currently sitting in FV3 and we're hoping it'll be out and about in a couple of weeks when, hopefully, it'll pass the all-important test of tasting like the original!

Next up we're planning a re-run of "54-46" with Calypso (and other) hops.... 

LD transferring into FV3....

Two new beers!

We have two new beers on the way from the brews of this week and last, both interesting (we hope!) and both never brewed before!

First up we have "March of the Giants", a 4.9% very pale brew with Kent-grown hops of Japanese origin; Toyomodori!  These were developed by Kirin in Japan but discontinued in cultivation due to problems with downy mildew, but after a spell of being used for breeding are now being grown around the world again and we thought we'd give them a go!  They give a hefty bitterness and a hint of tart raspberry which we're hoping to accentuate with some German Huell melon hops as the dry-hop... if we can get any, that is!

Second is "Magnum Chaos", a brew whose aim was mainly to do a bit of store (hop) cupboard cleaning!  Containing a right old selection of hops, including German Magnum (obviously!), New Zealand Green Bullet, US Cascade and UK Bramling Cross, this 5% or so brew will be more balanced yet still with the hop hit you expect from us....

Next week sees the third Waen brewery beer, "Lemon Drizzle", plus a return of the always popular and perennial favourite "Corazon de Oro".... oh yes!!!