by andy on 27th February 2008
Its been a bit of a struggle getting to this, with rather more revisions than usual. Kudos to our artist, John Olsen, for putting up with my demands. I wanted something representing the period before the second world war. Something my grandfather would recognise:
It’s an image of the Mallard steam engine, which was built in 1938. Astonishingly, it still holds the world record for a steam locomotive at a very respectible 126mph, rather more than most modern designs can actually manage. For me it represents something very special about the people and the period, something that we’d do well to remember.
by andy on 27th February 2008
March the 6th is D-Day for the Adur Brewery. We’re hiring a van to take all our ingredients and various bits of kit, off to the next county where we will be doing the first large scale brew of Merry Andrew. We have all our ingredients to hand and I’m expecting our first load of casks to turn up this week.
In anticipation of our first public launch in early May, I’ve arranged a second brew day for Velocity, our 4.2% ABV bitter. Ideally both types of beer will be available for tasting at the various launch events. I’ll be posting more on these closer to the time.
I’m getting quite excited about this.
by andy on 24th February 2008
Dicky mentioned this to me a little while back, and clearly there’s no ulterior motive. He’s selling hops at less than the market rate to his much smaller commercial rivals in the US. He’s obviously passionate about beer.
Reading through the article, it did explain why we had difficulty buying East Kent Goldings. Jim Koch has 10,000 lbs spare. Obviously, all our hops have gone to the US.
Sigh. British hops for British beer anyone ? Perhaps that nice Mr. Brown could do something.
by andy on 22nd February 2008
by andy on 22nd February 2008
Just back from a quick trip to Belgium where several interesting beers were sampled, amongst other things. I find that while my back is turned, this was proposed. I employ people now, and I hope to be employing lots more in the future in the brewery. What’s my reaction going to be to someone revealing they had a criminal record of this nature ?
Probably hire them on the spot!
by andy on 15th February 2008
by andy on 15th February 2008
While I was out in Norway, I caught a television program about a family living in a remote part of Hardanger Fijord. It’s beautiful but very, very, isolated. At one point in the program the head of the family was shown brewing beer using green branches and chips of wood in a full grain mash. I don’t speak a huge amount or Nowegian but I’m told that the branches were Juniper. It grows like a weed all over Western Norway. The wood was probably Juniper as well, I’m still trying to find out. There didn’t seem to be hops used at all in the recipe. The resulting beer was cloudy but the locals seemed to be enjoying it. With a pint of lager competetively priced at £6 a pint I expect it competes pretty well.
There’s a Finnish beer that goes by the name of Sathi or Sati that is supposed to be brewed in this fashion, and I’m trying to find a recipe. Should be interesting.
UPDATE – Turns out the wood chips are birch! This has been described to me as slightly controversial. My only other experience of Norwegian birch based cusine produced results more in common with a beer mat than food. I wonder what this is like ?
by andy on 15th February 2008
Shortly after I wrote my last post I was called away to Norway on some family business. I’ve just got back to find our malt has been delivered which means that we now have most of the things needed for our first brew.
Because my own schedule has been hit by this unexpected trip, our brew day has been moved to early March. All things being equal I expect our first commercial brews to be ready sometime mid to late April.
by andy on 6th February 2008
I’ve just ordered half a tonne of malt. Up to now 25kgs has been my limit, this is 20 times as much. We are pretty much all set for brewing now although I’ve got to make an unexpected trip that’s taking me out of circulation for a week. Given the lead on delivery times we are now looking at the first week of March for our first brew day.
by andy on 4th February 2008
I’ve started a low level campaign on Google to publicize our progress and forthcoming launch. Google isn’t showing our adverts though after a week. Why ? They aren’t saying.
Update – the 1st advert is now showing. Apparently we were waiting for a review to complete. We are now waiting for a second advert to go through the process.
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