Mid-Week (ish) round-up
I say mid-week-ish as the term “week” has been largely abandoned here in the brewery … we’re on day 5 of a straight 8 day brewing stretch so I’ve resorted to “the World Cup” calendar where time is dictated by the forthcoming match schedule. This troglodyte style existence can take its toll, so if you see a twitching figure crouched in a darkened corner of the brewery, Apocalypse Now-style, maniacally stripping and re-assembling a centrifugal pump, please call the appropriate authorities! All is not doom and gloom of course … we managed to get top-side for the England and USA matches yesterday morning although they were 2 of the most stressful matches I’ve seen for a while … definitely not good for the blood pressure …. but hugely entertaining games. We had a packed house here at The Pratt Street Ale House. It’s great to see so many people getting behind their team, the weekend matches should be fantastic. Team USA take on Ghana on Saturday @ 2.30pm while England meet up with arch footballing enemies Germany (please God, no penalties) on Sunday @ 10am. As usual the Ale House will be featuring the matches on our plethora of flat screens and our Bulldog Bitter will be flowing @ the special price of $3/pint during the games. Come and get your game on!
Now on the beer engine @ The Ale House is the last cask of the last batch of Cherry Blossom Ale … a blissfully refreshing pint in this weather! Following that we’ll have a cask of Dark Horse and then Three Spires Ale.
The Strongman Pale Ale is on tap right now folks! It’s an 8.6% abv, hoppy (in an English way) pale ale and looks like being a permanent fixture in our beer line-up now. The Hot Monkey Love (batch#1) has run out now. Batch#2 is conditioning at the moment and will do so for another 2 months but is quite a different beast to batch #1 …. watch this space for details. We also have some aging in oak barrels for the eventual release party. nothing new in process right now as we’re brewing like crazy just to keep up with demand of our regular brews but we’ve got a couple of things in the planning stage. First off will be a brew to celebrate the impending birth of my son, Jacob. I’ve got a rough draft of a recipe prepared but the final details will be dependent upon his birth weight. Both the abv and the weight of hops used in the brew will be a direct correlation to birth weight ie if he weighs 8lbs and 4oz , I’ll be aiming for 8.4% abv, using 8lb 4oz of hops in the brew. Now, as you know, I don’t use a lot of American hops in my brews but as a nod to his American parentage this time the hops will be equally split between American (Chinook and Mounthood and maybe some Cascade) and English (Challenger,First Gold and Kent Goldings). Also in the planning stage is Channel Crossing Series 2, which will be a Belgian take on an English Nut Brown Ale and hopefully will be scheduled for sometime in July.
Fly the flag for your team this weekend. Watch the World Cup Action @ The Pratt Street Ale House