MONTHLY BEERIODICALS

May has treated us well, The month started with a bang! We unveiled Midstream Mild on May Day at the top of The Giant in Cerne Abbas with the Wessex Morris Men at Sunrise, 5:40 am from memory, but it all is a bit vague, The climb up this year was more pleasant with the help of Chris Parsons and without the sideways rain and howling gale! The sunrise was spectacular and the beer was outstanding, She was brewed at 8bbl (32 cask) with over 30 kg of Fresh Honey, This was from the  beehives on the orchard where our cider apples are grown in Melplash, Keeping the whole thing “in house” It sold out instantly so we will be brewing this again next May. It has been suggested that it may be a good idea for me to have some breakfast at next year’s may day celebrations and that way I may keep both my eyebrows and job!!

 

We have also brewed #No.1 This is a Bohemian lager style beer, brewed with Lager malt and Pilsner hops. This has gone straight to bottle and Keg! Yes folks that means we can raise it through a chiller, gas it and serve it out a lager pump ice cold and fizzy!! We will be trialling this on our outside bars over the summer so keep your eyes on the website, facebook, twitter etc. for details of up and coming events. There is even talk of a launch frenzy in the brewery. As a brewer of beer using malt, water, hops and yeast I personally feel this is completely different from mass produced Lager made by the big boys using syrups and hop extract! I use only the finest ingredients and hand craft it in the same way I do with all my ales, for the tech heads i have used our own strain of yeast and then lagered it over a few weeks prior to bottle and kegging.

 

Next on the monthly special list for June is, “Bursting Out” a 4.4% Pale Ale with floral and fruity characteristics, Brewed with a simple Marris Otter Pale malt base with no adjuncts and heartily hopped with Maryanka from Poland, Vic stumbled across this hop whilst chatting to his good friend Will from the hop merchants, It isn’t widely used and gives a lovely floral, resinous and at the same time a herbal essence. This will be available throughout June in all good pubs. We have Q.C’d this from stillage and it is absolutely stunning.

 

The July special is on the drawing board, (or more to the point a big bundle of papers, illegible scribblings of a madman and a few ancient books on Rob’s desk,) we are waiting for elderflower to appear on the hedgerows on Mr Horsington’s farm, this is a bit late this year due to the soggy spring, but rest assured the trees are budding nicely as I write this. So in true Piddle style our seasonal beers are very much dependent on the seasons. As folklore can be shorthand for remembering important information, I surmise that the hag in the following tale represents death... The wood in the elder tree contains cyanide, which when burned in confined quarters, such as one roomed hovels many peasant farmers would have lived in the middle ages, can fill a room with noxious smoke, killing its occupants instantly. I suspect then, that the hag in the elder tree is always a bit moody when it comes to asking for her firewood, although she is just as likely to say “Help yourself to the flowers, just leave enough to turn into berries in the Autumn” Vic has come up with a cunning plan upon cropping the flowers that involves the freezer. He has also sourced a secret delicate hop to complement this in the off boils but sincerely intends on bittering with the traditional favourite of all true English brewers the noble Golding. The name of this brew has yet to be decided but rest assured we are confident that our usual inebriated “think tank” will come up with another memorable offering.

 

Production has increased again, we now brew 2 double brews a week bringing our weekly tally to 48bbl, not bad considering I brew Monday to Thursday! Please feel free to come and see us this week-end as I am off to join the Piddle team at "The Royal Bath and West Show" at Shepton Mallett. I shall be doing 3 talks in the food arena, I hope they are ready for it, all i have to do is work out what to say, i have been told to make it like a womans dress..." long enough to cover the important bits, but short enough to keep you interested" No doubt the obligatory bottle of Royal Bath and West 150 ale lovingly crafted by my good self will help oil the vocal chords... Until next time Piddlers, be nice to yourself and each other.

Cheers

Vic

 

 

LOT 71 and Sacks of Gold

So today we are brewing IPA LOT 71 again. The strongest of all our brews. This beer is jam packed with the finest hops. We have decided on a more conservative amount to brew this time as 6bbl's was a tad ambitious with an 8bbl mash tun! There is more malt in 5bbls than 8 bbls of Piddle. We don't up the gravity with sugar, preferring to go with the traditional extract from malt alone. As I am writing this Simon is ceremoniously cleaning off Great Uncle David of Dagenhams antique hop paddle and getting the fermentation vessel squeaky clean.

Well as this blog has that "live" feel to it we have just finished the final transfer and cool down, we had a most magnificent rolling boil and have ended up slightly over our 1071 target on specific gravity, we had excellent viability on the yeast so a vigorous fermentation should ensue. Most of this is going to bottle, but as we love our beer we have decided on putting some to cask, and making it available for selected beer festivals and the odd soiree of our own.

"There's Gold in them there sacks I tell thee" GOLDSACKS. Named after our infamous boss Mr. Paul Goldsack, this beer has been in the prospective annals of our production for longer than we can remember. The briefing was simple, keep it light, golden and fruity with an easy to go down characteristic, I guess this one will live up to its name then! I started with a malt base of Lager Barley and as you can see from above a heady mixture of Maize blended in. I kept the whole Pilsner theme with some Bohemian hops from behind the Iron Curtain, that is not an euphemism for metal store cabinet, Hallertauer Hersbrucker is the predominent hop used. We ended up with an ABV of 4.0% bang on. 

I take my job seriously and never one to shirk any responsibility I seflessly embarked on some quality control in the Giant Inn in Cerne Abbas. I ordered my Goldsacks in a lager vessel, my fellow imbibers found this confusing at first, upon further discussion and "sippers" from my glass a few eyebrows were raised from the lager pop fellas. "What? you mean thats made from the same stuff as lager?" "What real lager?" "I dont drink that real ale but thats not bad" and of course those unforgetable words "I'll have one of them next" Overjoyed and caught up in the moment, slightly missing my partner in crime Johann, I took on the next thankless task in the brewers workload, and that my friends, is finding out how well a gallon sits in the belly. I can confirm, as I did with Jon Absolom at 2 o'clock in the morning, It's a lovely easy drinking brew and will be all the better for a bit of sunshine. No nasty hangovers the next day. In fact the following day, I dropped of some beermats to the Giant to be greeted by Colgate Chris, and further congratulations of a beer well brewed and this coming from a man I have never seen with a glass of anything vaguely brown in his hand. I was happy with the result.
So what's next you may ask? well... I've just brewed Cocky Hop as the March Seasonal and then we have "April Showers" The pump clip is with the designers, 4.2% is the abv and Rob wants "intense peach" So it's just a case of getting on with it, so dust off the hop encyclopedia and get me Will from Farams on the phone...I might just have an idea.....

Cheers

Vic

Perky Pecker and the previous goings on...

Hello Piddlers,

It's been a few months since my last blog, apart from the tale of "Captain Swurve"

So whats been brewing in the noisy part of the madhouse? I must admit I have had to go back to the last blog to see where I got up to! Well of course it was Porter season in November, so this saw the reappearance of Thunderbox, the first brew was the same recipe as last year. I felt the roasted smokeyness complemented the delicateness of the hop bill ok but... when you strive to make the best beer you possibly can you are always analysing the end result, and after much deliberation we decided on a subtle hop change in the off boils, leaving the bramling cross alone as this gives us the wonderful blackcurrent tones, I substituted the Saaz for Hallertau Herzbuker, firmly believing this would give us a softer and more rounded beer. I am please to announce our feelings were based partly on emotion but more so on science with astringency desire and co homulone numbers. The result is a smoother pint without losing the charachter we have all come to know and love. On a personal level I always love the first runnings from the mash tun to copper, the combination of darkness and roasted aroma from the malt gives me a lovely warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Next up was IPA LOT 71. A "proper IPA" This is the third year running we have been brewing this amazing beer. The last cask of the 2012 vintage was drunk within hours of the opening of the Beer festival at Ye Olde George Inn in Christchurch, a bit like Rob was last year! We age this in the time honoured manner of traditional India Pale Ale, except it doesn't go as far. Ian had kindly offered to take some to the Isle of Wight and back next time he goes to see his parents. The incredibly large hop bill matures as time goes by, So we brewed this in November and then put it to bottle Mid-January.We tweaked the recipe a tiny amount, but thats only because we can. This was the first time I used my antique hop paddle generously given to me by Great Uncle Dave of Dagenham.  The official launch of the bottle conditioned rascal is to be at Beer-ex in Dorchester in a few weeks. This is also a good opportunity to try it direct from cask, we strongly recommend someone else giving you a lift home though, Paul suggested the best barrel sponsor for the Beer-ex for this one should be Bob's Cars taxi service! We are once again proud to be the main sponsor of the whole event, so please pop along and have a natter about all things beer.

Within days I was brewing Santa's Potty for cask. I had brewed this a month before for bottles so no suprises with this one. Brewed with a duo of hops, it's a fruity number that complements the biscuit malt base superbly, it also has a cheeky hazel nutty escence. As it's our christmas ale it obviously starred in our gift packs. The least I say about the thousands of gift packs we made the better. It could be the seemingly endless amount, it could be the re-occuring paper cut on the inside of my left thumb, if you have ever cut a cut you will know this feeling. Or it could be lack of daylight, but hey ho (or ho ho ho) they all got done and that was that.

Then of course Christmas came and went, after a long well earned break (as in we were earning well to sit at home and eat and drink like pigs!) It was back early January. It was with renewed vigour Myself and Simon embarked on this year. The days scrubbing and bleaching the brewery from top to bottom before Christmas was all but a distant memory. The pure joy of a sparkling clean brewhouse was an absoloute pleasure. Then Paul gently dropped it that he had designed the "touchy feely" Perky Pecker pump clip and we had better get on with making it. I was given a clean sheet and with the minimal discussion with Our Leader I got to work on the recipe. As I had anticipated this coming I had some stong ideas of what I wanted to brew, A light coloured Amber beer, delicately hopped, not too bitter with subtle fruityness and it has to be 3.8% to match Pauls artistic handy work! It's hard to tell what the end result is going to be immediately after brewing, as wort is fundamentaly sweet barley juice and incredibly bitter at the same time, but not to worry, every morning before mashing in, sometimes before getting the blue wellies on I would eagerly pour some from the FV and let my taste buds get to work. Making sure I had brushed my teeth before breakfast, so not to arrive with minty mouth. It was with apprehensive anticipation I would take my first sip, It was day 3 that I had the Eureka moment. What a beauty, some say a thing of beauty others say a beautiful thing, what ever way you look at it it was marvellous. Exactly what I was striving for, The sweetness of cascade running through it without being that over done "cascade juice" modern beer produced by many other breweries. I personally battled through the snow and ice to deliver a cask to my local "The Giant Inn" in Cerne Abbas last night. It could be on for the weekend fingers crossed.

The next seasonal on the agenda is our eagerly awaited brew...Goldsacks. Named after our more flambouyant boss Mr Paul Goldsack. I have been inspired by the use of Maize in my maltbase, to give it a lovely golden hue, I feel we may be drinking/flavour profiling some golden beers over the next few days, all in the name of product research of course!

Happy Piddling everyone

Vic the Brewer

IPA LOT 71- The Captains Tale

Here lies the legend of Captain Swurve.......

This tale begins in the late 1700's regarding the legend that is "Captain Swurve". This self proclaimed title was due to his world renowned ability to maneuver his ship with startling agility and guile. A hedonistic rascal of the high seas, he was contracted to the East India Company to ship fine pale ales to Calcutta. Setting sail from Moonfleet in his beloved Dorset, keeping the "land to the left" he would arrive in the east end of London to collect his load. The good captain strongly believed a happy ship is a safe ship and to this end he negotiated a deal for every 70 barrels loaded onto his vessel there shall be one for the crew, Hence LOT 71 came to fruition. The good captain paid special interest to the quality of the beers, as the years came to pass he became quite an expert on the noble art of secondary fermentation, as the beers would be "quality controlled" all along this perilous journey. Such was "Swurves" reputation as a crafty sailor and keeper of fine ales, he bacame associated with fellow gentlemen of the seas, preferring not to fly the skull and crossbones unless it was at the Portuguese or Dutch, he didn't care much for the title "Pirate" as this would invalidate his contract with "The company" but rest assured he was not a man to be trifled with, his cannons had the biggest balls and he wasn't shy of showing them. He chose not to have the de rigueur figurehead of a busty maiden, instead he chose the Cerne Abbas Giant with oversized phallus, depending where he would recount the tale, "it was made of the hardest iron and could crack an iceberg in half"

Legend has it that after a rather tiresome battle with some irritating French chaps that had dragged on for far too long and was going to make lunch rediculously late Swurve decided against the usual twists and turns and swashbucling swordfights and opted for the old favourite of ramming the belly of Jonny Forigners vessel thus sinking it in an instant, as the minutes ticked by half full barrels of brandy started popping up all around, after these were fished out by the men and drunk enthusiastically. Swurve decided to conduct a few experiments of his own. Not a man to be idle and having the eyes of a dreamer and the heart of an artist, he transferred some beer to the empty brandy cask and set it down for a few months to mature. This test was declared inconclusive and in later life he preferred the darkest of ales to be infused in a whole array of casks previously used for Whiskey, Rum, Brandy and the like. As life has a habit of immitating art, your good friends at Piddle Brewery have brewed a very special IPA to commemorate the bravery and admirably elegant style of this legend from days gone by. Some say he is laid to rest at St. Andrews churchyard on the East cliffs of Portland, but we may never know... So raise a glass to Captain Swurve, and enjoy this original 7.1% Proper IPA, Rest assured it's strong, heavily hopped and very tasty, Just as "The Captain" loved it...

Cheers Me Hearties, and Happy Piddling from Vic the Brewer p.s dark ale.. matured in oak whiskey, port, sherry, rum and brandy barrels....is there something secret going on under the stairs of the brewery?? shhhh you might wake them x

Hubble Bubble Toil and Trouble

So folks it's been a while since my last offerings in cyberworld. What's been happening you may well ask... So I'll tell you. Today I am brewing "Flying Low" this one-off special beer is to celebrate the imminent arrival of All Hallows Eve, or Halloween to the rest of us. This is what we have called the fruits of our freestyle method of brewing. Leaving the creative influences down to the beer gods and the availability of ingredients depending on our success at of the noble art of Forraging. Forraging is concidered an art form in these here parts of Dorset. I shall be blogging at different intervals throughout the day.

It is currently half past eleven. The wort has come to the boil and I have added the first offerings of hops to the copper known as the bittering hops. I don't usually disclose my recipes but today is different. I am using hallertau Aroma, an organic hop from New Zealand. These have been forraged from our hop store. I will be adding more of these "later" in the brew as late hops and then I have also forraged some Mount Hood hops from the Hallertau family from Portland, I will then blend the two for off boils. I have to go now as Henry from 3core pumps has arrived to do the pump juggle and change the seal on the final pump, the one that does the transfer to FV from the copper, This new pump not only has a SPECIAL sticker on the side but comes complete with "brewery seal" inside, so the pressure is on to get it back in time.... Elsewhere in the brewery today there has been a sporadic deafening din as Simon has been putting the second brew of the season of Pointing Percy to cask, this is a Munich style beer with a light mouth feel, delicately hopped with no lasting bitterness to the follow. A stunning crisp beer you could drink pints galore, given half a chance. We are coming to the end of the crazy season for outside events, so it's time to repack the mobile contents of the travelling beer bordello back in the shed for winter and Ian to have a day off. Marin Clunes Buckham Fair went remarkably well, and we helped raise over £40,000 for this years charity, Julias House Hospice, please take a moment to look at the link, these people are truly amazing, I cannot say anything that will give the magnitude of this http://www.juliashouse.org/Home.aspx The Dorset show once again was a blast,naughty behaviour was a credit to all our staff and bosses. We peaked at 3 events on one day, I was at Joseph Weld summer fair with Ian. Paul whizzed around everywhere and ended up at Stomping on the Quomps at Christchurch, Ashley started at the Food and Drink Festival at Weyouth Pavillion grazing on fine cheeses, chutneys and networking with the sausage men, he also ended up at Stomping with the rest of the gang, I slipped away into the evening to the 3rd Cerne Abbas Beer Festival with Simon for some intensive market research. Back to today... We're on the final leg of our beers journey, Henry has excelled himself again and with minutes to spare realigned my life and got all the pumps doing what they should, We've had a call from Paul who is out in the field with the "Hedgerow Harvest Team" This is the bit of the Halloween Brew i haven't mentioned yet, The freshest local blackberries, nedless to say our boss now has purple fingers, grass stains on his trousers and about an hour ago almost had the target amount of 2x 20lrt buckets full of wild blackberries, that was until a chance meeting with a lovely old swiss lady walking her dogs gave up much of his harvest to her, and she has promised to bring him back a blackberry and apple strudle later on this afternoon, as they say there's plenty more berrys on the bushes.

That's it for now folks, my transfer is nearly complete and then we are off to find the 2012 Fagin of the counrtyside and his band of merry pickers and what ever is left of their bounty. Cheerio for now. p.s. All done and looks like we're on target for 4.6% abv.

Return of The Leg

Hello Lovelies. So what's been happening in the cathederal of brewing known to many as that quirky brewery in the funny shaped building in Piddlehinton? Well quite alot really.

First and foremost is the long awaited arrival of this years' evolution of Legwarmer. In true Piddle style we did some constructive beer drinking, much pontification, a fair bit of head scratching, two arm wrestles and the best of 27 paper-scissors-stones and it was all agreed we would up the amount of ginger! Our noble leader was a bit sceptical about this dynamic move in direction as "you need to be able to go out and drink 8 pints of it" I took these bold words in their true literal meaning and at the first oportunity embarked on this thankless task at the Sydling Springs Pre-school fundraiser Barn Dance at Nether Cerne. I can faithfully report back that a gallon of this beautiful brew is no problem whatsoever to quaff. In fact I could have squeezed a few more pints in if I had some more time and didn't indulge quite so much on the Home made Pasties. All in a days work for Cheif Brewmeister at Piddle world. The thing that sets Legwarmer apart from many "Beers with Ginger" is the unique malt base. We have done that old chestnut of looking back at history to go forward and push the boundaries in current craft brewing. The secret to the magnificent straw like appearance that glows golden like a hallowed chalis is.... Now I'm playing with a double edges sword here, on one hand I want to shout from the roof tops about my extra special malt base and on the other hand I want to keep my cards close to my chest in case I am the victim of the ultimate flattery and that being immitation, and with the lack of a third hand (one that I am sure Rob thinks we have with our new cleaning regime) I am boldly going to put it out there... And the secret to my success is.... Maize. There you go I've gone and said it. Maize to brew with is simply a pleasure I can only begin to tell you. The colour is like magical gold, not that dull old antique gold you find on expensive oil paintings in the Louvre but brightest gold from cartoon pirates treasure chests. Looking over the malt sacks your face lights up like someone is holding a thousand buttercups under your chin. In the mash tun it doesnt lose much sparkle and what always startles me is the sheer appearance the first runnings into the underback. I add my hand processed ginger into the boil and then in true bisto kid style revel in the wafts of aroma eminating all over the surrounding area. This first brew was especially aromatic throughout the enitire brewery and office, as I had a slight blockage up the chimney. Not to worry, double gloves, safety hoody and some renegade chimney engineering Fred Dibnah would have been proud of, the blockage was cleared and the ginger mist subsided and the whole of enterprise park could once again share the enjoyment of the harmonious notes of aromatic beautifulness. Even the Crendons smoking posse gathered on the lawn remarked how lovely it was! You can now enjoy this unique ale in the surrounding pubs and bars on draught by the pint load, as the beer gods intended.

It was also Clare's birthday a few weeks back, not wanting this auspicious occassion to go unnoticed, I gave our friend James O Neill a call at Wessex FM. We had a quick chat and I told him Clare was 40! and could his listeners give the Piddle Van a flash and a wave to celebrate this monumental day with her. The thing is she isn't 40 infact she is only just in her 30's.... This whole gag was shaping up really well for me throughout the day, until that magical moment the sound clip of Me was played on the airwaves in the van to our birthday girl, I think the word most commonly used is "busted", lets just put it this way when she got back to the brewery I displayed a turn of speed more suited to a man younger than my 42 years. Happy Birthday Clare we don't know where we would be without you xx Finally the "Brewers Reserve" collection is shaping up well for up and coming festivals, "The Taste of Paradise" coconut thunderbox is coming on nicely. As is the hint of vanilla. I hope to experiment with some Elderflower in the next week or so as there is an abundance in the hedgerows and as we aren't a city center brewery and are nestled amongs the green rolling hills of deepest Dorset I feel it would be rude not to. Until next time folks Happy Piddling Vic the Brewer.

Flipping 'eck Tucker, The Giant climb and a coconut

Now that is a lot of beer!!! 266 to be precise. It has been over a month since my last blog, living the life of the brewer in Piddle world is pretty much all consuming this eagerly awaited installment has had to wait for a quite a while. At the SIBA (society of independent brewers) south west beer festival at Tuckers Malting last month I embarked on some of this consumption and consumed many wonderfull beers from my fellow brewers. We were hosts of table J on the judging day, with the exception of serving one beer with ants in, myself and Simon did a sterling job. I was the designated driver on this occasion as Simon doesn't do stick (that's drive a manual car on this side of the Atlantic)so spending a day watching people drink beer did feel a bit odd. But fear not faithfull blogees, I triumphantly returned the following evening with Ian to report for duty and after a short stint selling beer coupons we were despatched behind the bar to serve ale. We promptly made our way to the D's nestled between Dartmoor and Exeter and enthusiasticaly set about the job in hand, informative yet informal was my style. At this point I would like to tell you about my test of nerve and brewing "joie de vivre". One of the ales on offer from your favourite quirky and most talked about brewery was Leg Warmer, nothing unusual there I hear you say, but this was no ordinary Leggy this was a special one off with added ginger, I don't want to give my secrets away but lets just say it was "stunning" Infact it was the trip to see Lady Tesco this evening to harvest some fresh ginger for further experimentation with our leader that I met up with my good friend Johann, who insisted I update News of the Brews, he reminded me about many of the exploits we have been getting up to, I felt he had a valid point so here it is.

As we are now in the month of May we couldn't let the celebration of Beltane pass us by. Beltane being the mid point between the spring equinox and summer solstice, a celebration of saps rising and blossoming of spring, traditionally this is a time of focus on fertility and also on labour. With this in mind a plan started to emerge in the control tower of Piddleworld, this involved a Giant man on a hillside with an impressive phallus, a 9 gallon cask of Cocky Hop, an incredibly early start and of course The Wessex Morris men. All we needed now was to iron out the logistics of this plan. Firstly carrying a cask of beer up and incredibly steep hill in the dark we will have to have bright beer, as it will get shaken up a bit. Secondly we needed to ask the Morris men if they would like us to bring beer along to the dancing and merryment. With those two details quickly sorted it was just the small task of how we are going to actually do it. Paul at this point wished us well and hoped we have a good time. Rob was quite taken by the idea and needed to know exactly what time was sunrise was and how long did we think it would take to carry the beer up the hill and what time would i be able to get back down and get into the brewery for mashing in! As if by chance another good friend of mine happened to be "down our kneck of the woods kite surfing for 4 days" as an ex-serviceman serving for the royal engineers step forward Mr Edom, we have a challenge for you... Alarms were set for just after 4 am. Myself, John and the Cocky Hop made our way to the car park at the bottom of The Giant Hill under the cover of darkness. At this point I thought we had better phone Rob and see how far away he was, well you could have knocked me over with a feather when the phone was answered by Mr Goldsack himself. "Well i couldn't let you lot have all the fun could I" and "I thought i'd better help Rob with the dogs as Sophie has a bit if a thing with Morris men" So with the unexpected suprise of both my bosses, two dogs and an increasingly heavy barrel of beer we strolled up the hill in the direction of ringing bells and torchlights, I say stroll, this is a bit misleading, we puffed, panted, slipped a fair bit, John coughed alot and at one point we thought we'd lost her to the power of gravity we eventally beat the daylight to the top of the hill and when the tap went in, cheers rung out across the Cerne Valley in sheer jubilation, Songs were sung, dances were danced and overall merryment was the order of the day. Thank goodness for the thirst of those Morris Men and the hardy souls gathered for this amazing occasion in slightly adverse weather conditions.

The following day was our second "double brew" day, this time I had the help of Ian. Simon obviously did his assistant brewer thing and kept just ahead of me getting fermenters ready and such like and also following me picking up the pieces. We work together over 11 hours a day, so you have a tremendous understanding and get in a routine with stuff, so starting the second brew before you finish the first one shouldn't be too difficult should it? The small detail of using the hot water from the heat exchanger from the transfer to do the second sparge needing to be exactly 75 to 76 degrees, and this after I had mashed in the second set of malts, there is a point of no return. This is Ians second brew with me, so I tried to hide the concern and make it all look easy, trying my best to be like the proverbial swan and glide gracefully, except I was like that swan you see that has its bum up in the air or hissing alot and allegedly will break your arm if you get too close, Alas all the worry and carefull planning came to fruition, We hit all our timings and levels, and even after Ians initiation into the realms of brewdom and scrubbing the copper clean, we made it into The Oak at Dewlish for last orders. "That wasn't too bad was it" said Rob, "you seemed to have that nailed with no drama" and of course he was right, with no power disruption and a full complement of pumps it was plain sailing, and of course the following day felt like a half day. Before i sign off from these ramblings I need to mention a few people, Big shout going out to Chris aka Wurthers/Grandad our deep heat soaked elder statesman, now on facebook, Ashley from the chair in the office talking the talk, Princess Di and her incredible way with words in credit control,Alex Cosgrove our work experiencer who is due back after a year at university that was actually 9 months and of course our pole dancing queen of the road Clare who is having a few days off from working the drey. I never thought I would say this but I'm looking forward to the old bag coming back to work, i just hope she wears the helmet....

and finally....... The Coconut....You will have to wait until next time for that one, but put it this way, close your eyes, no not yet you wont be able to read this..take a few slow deep breaths in through your nose, imagine a dark rich smokey ale with a deep treacle texture with the unmistakable taste of coconut running through it and a subtle hint on the nose......if you like the sound of that you had better watch out for the unveilng of Vintage Caribean TBox, the taste of paradise.... Happy Piddling Vic the brewer