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
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