I started working for Britain's quirkiest and most talked about brewery the day after my 41st birthday. I have just completed my 100th Piddle brew, this was Silent Slasher. This was a beautiful thing in itself, as the very first brew i made after strolling nervously through the doors of Piddle world was Slasher, and the day my good friend and previous brewer left, the delivery returned from cold filterers and bottling plant with our inaugural batch of you guessed it Silent Slasher. I will never forget that moment of sitting outside the back of the old building with Ginger Simon and Big Simon bathed in glorious sunshine and drinking our very first "bright" Slashers straight from the bottle and toasting the dawn of a new era in Piddle bottled ales.
Moving it along a few months brings me to the great Dorset County Show, this was my first taste of the reactions of the great British public on mass to my Piddle creations. Rob and Paul were on cracking form as usual, ensuring the Piddle Bar was THE place to be, complete with chandeliers, red velvet stools and guilt framed paintings all inside a tent! I would also like to mention the hand crafted bar itself, this resembles a large butchers block complete with coach bolts and constructed by my good self with the cabinet makers tool of choice the 16 inch chainsaw, i recall it was late into one summers evening Rob was in the old office wading through a huge pile of paperwork, Clare had just returned from another hard days cruising round the South West dropping of lots of beer and suntanning her right arm, and i was covered in sawdust, yeast and sweat trying to work out how all these pieces of precision cut timber was going to be assembled into a bar, when our leader emerged from the brewhouse muttered the immortal words " mmm smells like you've been scrambling out here Vic, i think i'd like three of those bars made for the show, and by the way this Leg Warmer that got back today is bloody lovely!"
Of course the big news of the year was our long awaited move to the new brewery, it was always "in three weeks time" until one day Rob told us it will be in the next "two weeks" Simon and I looked at each other, then the open door Rob had disappeared through, then back at each other, did he just say two weeks dude? We better start getting things together, ordering skips and sorting what stays, what goes, and where are we going to put it all, and how are we going to move it all and not lose any brewing days. Luckily enough Big Simon had been hiding his talents for fork lift driving under a bushel, as the day got nearer, he got quieter, had nightmares of our copper breaking loose from the forklift and rolling down the hill and smashing to a million pieces. All of this was unfounded as the move went seamlessly and we were brewing on Bank Holiday Monday.
Rant over, so what will this year bring us? I have IPA Lot 71 on my brew schedule, this will be ready for the beer festival in Dorchester on the first weekend in February at the corn exchange, www.beerex.co.uk oh how our forefathers would be proud of us using this historic building for such an event. And of course Little Willy is to go into cask too, i have learned a lot from last time i lovingly crafted this hefty brew, i intend to brew a little bit less per batch, as capacity was my issue on the mash tun last time, and the Heath Robinson approach to sparging was fun but not necessary.
It's Saturday night now and I'm sat in front of my laptop with an empty glass, So i will sign off now and go and have a Pint of this Slasher I've been going on about. Please Piddle responsibly, and as my Uncle Paul would say..."away you go laughing"
Cheers
Vic the brewer
