Hops and Barley

Gazza has spent today involved in the following activities;

1) Resigning from his current job,
2) Trying to source the hops our name insists we need,
3) Getting quotes from maltsters for base malt, and
4) Searching for second-hand brewplants on the internet.

All in a day's work setting up a new brewery....!

There really are a million and two things to consider and I'm just thankful that Tom and Steve are doing a lot of the work down at the coalface.  It's all starting to make sense, however, and we are still optimistically looking at January 2013 for the appearance of the first Hopcraft beers and the newly-tuned Pixie Spring brews too.

On the positive side, most Maltsters now seem to produce a low-colour Maris Otter malt which opens up our options a great deal; this malt is the one which characterises the "new wave" UK beers - call them Mid-Atlantic, Trans-Atlantic, whatever - from Jaipur to the old Punk IPA, and it's great to have such a wide choice these days.

Cheers!