Mid-week round-up
You may have read in a recent post about how cold it gets in the basement brewery (our very own Winter Wonderland) and the implications that it has on our fermentations. Well it of course has implications for Justin and myself as well! As I’m writing this I glance to the thermometer to see that it is 54F in the office … time to break out the electric heaters (we’ve already got one running in the FV room). It’s hard to get on with the nitty gritty of the brewing day when you can’t feel your fingers! Of course when we fire up the brew kettle, that warms up the brew house area but also serves to exaggerate the temperature differential as you move from one area to the next. During the brew day relatively little time is spent in the brew house save for mashing-in, setting taps and digging out the mash tun. During the wort run-off/ sparge time I’ll be processing beer ie. moving beer from FV to conditioning tank and from conditioning tank to carbonation tank etc., away from the sanctuary of the kettle’s huge gas burner! For those of you who have seen the recent BrewDog video promoting their Nuclear Penguin beer, those penguin suits may soon be the new Oliver’s brew uniform!!
This week has turned upside down somewhat. We’ve postponed our planned Scottish Ale to put through another Dark Horse and Pagan Porter. We’ll probably reschedule the Scottish for Friday or Monday and we are also adding “Bishop’s Indulgence” to the brew schedule sometime in the next couple of weeks. Bishop’s Indulgence will be a big, bold stout, hopefully around the 7.5 – 8% range, a great Winter beer. We’ll also be putting through a batch of our Winter Wheat Ale, “The Darkness” before the Christmas break, closely followed by “Peeping Tom Porter” and “Strongman Pale Ale”.
Today is delivery day and we’re sending some more casks to ChurchKey, this time a dry hopped Blonde Ale, E.S.B. and a couple of firkins of Best Bitter so look out for those if you get a chance to get over there. Also check out the Merry Ole Ale on tap at The Hamilton Tavern. I haven’t made it over there yet but have heard wonderful things about it. Oh, and if you want a 3 Lions with your Crispy Wontons then make your way over to Lemongrass in Fells Point …. great food and dare I say it, great beer.
Cheers
Steve