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beau-jolly
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By a stange quirk of fate, I accidently live in and share the liability for the lease on, a Free House on the Dorset border.
We have 4 garages out the back, one is full of logs, one is full of oil tank, one is full of tractor and the fourth could be full of brewery.
Do any of you biscuiteers have any working knowledge of brewing using a one-barrel plant?
Oh, BTW. I may call it the little BIG brewery. BIG = Brewed In Garage. Any other suggestions?
waylandsmithy
offlineMember
I brew beer. I like beer. Beer brewing is easy. Drinking a pint of Robinsons 'Elbone'.
beau-jolly
offlineMember
Thanks Scroat: 1 barell = 4 firkins so not really nano and I think you can do a brew every about 4 days. That would be about 400 pints a week. Not big enough to be a commercial brewery - unless you have a pub!
You can get smaller units that fit under the stairs.
Wayland: Ah Robbo's. Brewed in sunny Stockport I beleive?
waylandsmithy
offlineMember
Robinson's generally make average beer, but they have lovely pubs. Just back from 'The Bleeding Wolf', one of my locals.
Brewing from mash is meant to be easy: temperature is critical but that's why we invented thermostats. I use kits at home, I don't have time to take it to the next stage. Nor the motivation: kits taste really good these days.
How about brewing chilli ginger cider? I experimented with it, it's great for barbecues.
MADJEZ
offlineMember
Having your own brewery... hmmm.
Might be worth tracking down a copy of that Neil Morrisey series where they bought a pub and brewed their own beer. Seem to recall there were lots of tips on getting started and there was definitely one place no bigger than a garage.
PS their beer was crap !
FlashArry
offlineMember
The guys at the Bridge Brewery in Burton started off real small scale, but said the real difficulty was moving the beer on, although they had some nice ideas on carry outs, beer-swapping - and lock-ins if my shattered memory serves. Might bottled stuff hold it's quality longer ?
Quaz
offlineMember
Brewing beer is easy, making it taste good is the hard part and requires practice. However, some pretty acceptable results can be achieved off the bat if you are carefull. The US is full of microbreweries, likely because the big companies there don't do a lot of ales. Why not start small with a barrel for friends and regulars and hone the technique, then when your mates think it's good start selling it as a cheap one on the pub pumps, then build from there? Given the recent tax rises, maybe aim for something not too strong but full of flavour, I think there is a big tax diff between 2.7% or something (You need to google the %) and above and a good session ale is worth having on the books. The Blue Anchor in Helston runs a brewery out the back, maybe give them a shout for advice. Where is the pub? If it's the Devon / Dorset border then I can maybe fit in a visit.
beau-jolly
offlineMember
Up to here with advise. My daughter's boyfriend's family have the local micro-brewery (Keystone) and our resident CAMRA man is mates with Small Paul in Gillingham. My concern is that even if I charge the pub an initial premium of £1 a pint it will take 5,000 pints to repay the set-up cost. hmmm? I feel a speadsheet coming on.
Small Paul
beau-jolly
offlineMember
My 6-pack is now a party 7.
Quaz: ta. Its on the Wilts/Doset border though.
waylandsmithy
offlineMember
Not all local water is suitable for all beers. Soft water is good for porter/stout, hard water is essential for lager and most summer ales. But you can harden soft water! It's called 'burtonizing', after Burton's famously hard water.
andhrimnir
offlineMember
I used to drink from time to time with Tommy Thomas, god rest his soul, of Franklins when it was up t'North (I think his was an eight barrel set up). He once accidently twice brewed one of his standards and produced a very nice new brew that he oft repeated and for the life of me I can't remember it's name though I'm sure it was misoginistic ("her fault" or similar). At least he said he'd brewed it twice, it was surely very flavoursome and of course brewing it twice meant more production expense so it was (slightly) dearer.
We had a cracking coach trip out to Robinsons brewery as my local was the only purveyor of their beer east of the A1 and won every awared going - Robbies best on as standard and always at least one guest. We stopped at a pub with onsite micro brewery in Huddersfield for lunch, over to Stockport for a tour and what turned out to be a free bar (many of the party foolishly drank Old Tom!)then back for a lock in. Tommy, unlike the brewery chemist, was able to answer my "how the chuff did anyone ever discover isinglass as a finings".
Those were the days when beer in the supermarket cost the same as in the pub, and when I'm prime minister I'm going to fix that.
oh yeah, and brewing beer is straight forward providing you don't over sample it. Send me your business plan, what you need is some investors (and four more outlets relatively local).
Ironduke
offlineMember
Youngs Winter Warmer and Adnams Broadside Pale Ale...a misty eyed moment just remembering. Well, trying to remember.
A Youngs pub in Kensington had a back bar where there was some permanent confusion about the measures port should be sold in...I asked for a double port chaser, they brimmed a double schooner (my eyes lit up, double measure!) and then reached down a massive bowl glass, tipped the double schooner in and followed it with another. Over a third of a bottle of port in my glass, beside a pint of Winter Warmer...a wonderful, if limitedly memorable, evening was born. Amazingly, the error was repeatable too, and over a period of many moths I developed quite an affection for the place.
Von Ribbentrop used to keep his champagne in their cellar when he was German Ambassador. Turn down by waterstones, I believe...if its still there.
PS...found it! The Britannia, for any of you Londoners...I can honestly say that 20years ago it was a cracking pub...what mroe topical reccomendation could you have?
http://www.youngs.co.uk/pub-detail.asp?PubID=363
Scroat
offlineMember
Old Tom. Lovely in moderation.
Talking of misty moments, once went to the pub at Hubberholme, Yorkshire, and they were selling Youngers Number 3 on draught. This is a fave of mine from way back, when I used to drink it at lunchtime at the George, in Reading. Lovely dark beer, quite sweet. Happy days.
andhrimnir
offlineMember
oooh No 3 and old favourite of mine too. Regularly quaffed on a Friday night - and occasionally interspersed with 80 bob, though there was an annoying twit (possibly the phantom tagger) who insisted on ordering "a pint of eighty slash hyphen". I think I preferred No3 to OP but that might have been that the Youngers pub was on a bus route and the Theakstons pub meant someone driving.
Right that's it, come on BJ buy the kit and start making some clone brews (I've got a book of recipes somewhere). I've never been to Dorset and despite it being fecking miles away I could be tempted.
The All New Jeni B
offlineMember
The first pub I worked in was a serial CAMRA winner. We had regulars such as No.3, 60, 70, and 80-/, along side guests, some of which were the result of mixing the run-off from all the others...
Anyway, the pub's still there, and still regularly features in CAMRA, so if anyone is ever up this way, I highly recommend it - http://fishermanstavern.co.uk/
waylandsmithy
offlineMember
Has anyone else tried Moorehouse's 'Pendle Witches' Brew'? It's a masterpiece.
The All New Jeni B
offlineMember
We had that and "Witches Tits" at one time. Can't remember who brewed the 'Tits'.
waylandsmithy
offlineMember
Best served cold, presumably.
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