A licence to spill?

Today we received word that our application for a premises licence has been accepted by Winchester City Council. HOORAH! This means that we can sell direct to the public for parties etc and it also means that we will stock smaller sizes of containers for clubs and other places that have a very sporadic turn over. We've ordered polypins (like a wine box) in 9 pint, 18 pint and 36 pint sizes so we should be able to cater for just about every ones needs. For the major occasions there's the 9 gallon firkins as well. We also have the facility to rack the beer before we put it into the container so you don't have to let it settle out. Just turn the tap and away you go!

Sometime next week we will be brewing the third beer in our range. It is the long awaited best bitter and it will be called Wallops Wood. We're going to be using some interesting coloured malt that we've never used before and, to appease the English hop brigade, Bramling Cross and Goldings. With a bit of luck it should be pleasingly malty and of a good ruddy hue. Having said that, we will just have to wait and see.

Start of the season

I've just come back from a few days dog walking in Cornwall so I haven't a clue what's been going on. What I do know is that upon my return yesterday, there were a couple of complimentary tickets for the Gosport Winterfest waiting for me. There can be no better way of spending a damp Saturday afternoon than supping good beer in good company, so Ray and I tootled off to sunny Gosport.

This has always been one of my favourite festivals. It's small enough to be personal and accessible and it's large enough to provide you with a choice of nearly 100 different beers plus Mr. Bleach's astounding range of bottles. It's also a great place to meet up with people you haven't seen for a while and as we have been out of the 'loop' there was a hell of a lot of them. Having tried a lot of beers, all in top form, (Ray tried rather more as he wasn't driving) we came to the conclusion that beer of the festival should be Fynne Ales 'Avalanche'. Seek it out if you can. It's wonderful!

What a lot of people don't realise is that all of these CAMRA beer festivals are organised and run entirely by volunteers. What even more people don't realise is the massive amount of planning, sourcing beers, setting up, staffing and much much more that has to be done before Joe Public (and I include myself in that) can waltz through the door and start quaffing beers and ales served in superb condition. And this is happening all over the country. When it comes to The Great British Beer Festival people take a whole week off work just to take part in that amazing festival. On a selfish level, these local festivals provide a showcase for our beers and also a means of getting our name out amongst the drinking public. I have often said, and it does bear repeating, that if it were not for The Campaign for Real Ale, brewers like us would not be in existence. We owe these people a huge debt. You do not have to go back many years to find yourself in that awful period of the past where the only thing to drink in your local was some vile crap that had about as much to do with beer as Big Brother has to do with entertainment. You could then drive from Southampton to Scunthorpe only to be presented with the same insipid crap but possibly under a different label. These days are, thank God, over. Hats off Ladies and Gentlemen!

More later.......

Delightful!

It's been a good week, with a couple more customers to add to the beer finder and several more in the offing for next week. It was great to speak with Tim at The Cuckoo yesterday. I haven't spoken to him for months and months and he's been doing some work on the pub. The major work has been in the Tap Room. Nice stillage Tim!

The later part of the week was quite hectic here. The volume of sales took us rather by surprise and we actually ran out of beer for the first half of the week. There was of course another brew of Swift One following along but it wasn't quite ready to go, so we sat on it until Thursday. It is of course rather embarrassing to have a brewery with no beer but as we said right at the start, "if it ain't ready we ain't gonna sell it!" It's much better to keep people waiting a few days than to fob them off with horribly green beer that should have sat in the conditioning vessel for a few more days.

In the fermentation vessels at the moment are brews of Swift One and Quiver Bitter. I've had to cool the Quiver Bitter down a bit this morning as it's going like a train and was in danger of over heating. The vessels have jackets for the chilled water so it's just a case of turning a switch. You can actually set the temperature you want it to go down to so dropping it a degree an hour is wonderfully simple. Luxury! And now.....

Spring was put on hold this week by the arrival of an inch or so of wet snow. It didn't stop for all that long but it was enough to stop the Skylarks ascending crazily into the heavens everytime a patch of blue sky appears. They really are amazing little creatures with that ability to fly almost out of sight and at the same time belt out that incredibly beatiful song. There's a rather nice description in one of my bird books that I thought you might like.

The Skylark rises from the ground with a special fluttering flight, singing as it ascends to great heights, hovering and circling. It sings through most of the descent, at the end plummeting silently to earth with folded wings.

Who says text books can't be poetical?

Wonderful

My apologies for not having blogged for a while but it's all been a bit hectic here. The Swift One has been flowing out the door like there's no tomorrow and the Quiver Bitter has also been very well received, though as it has only been on sale for a week, it's a little too soon to gauge opinion on it. The great thing is that we can be swayed by the consensus of opinion and alter the brew to suit. Now I know that there is no such thing as pleasing all of the people, all of the time but it is nice to please some of the people all of the time. But having said that, the discerning drinker is a fickle beast, so we will probably end up pleasing some of the people some of the time. Confused? I know I am.

A multitude of thanks and blessings to all of the pubs that have taken our beer. Just have a look at the beer finder section to see just how many publicans have taken the plunge and purchased something they've never tasted or even seen before. Not quite blind faith I know, but I think it is a bit brave and should be appreciated. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. It's thanks to these wonderful people that for the first time I've used the bank paying in book and not just the cheque book. Phew!

We had a few people over for a taste of the beer a week or so ago. It was just for the people who are associated with the farm complex here and it was a good way of getting to know neighbours and also a way of saying thanks for all the help we've received since we first arrived. It would have been bloody difficult without the loan of a forklift on several occasions and totally impossible without the assistance of the team, Katherine and Andrew and of course John and Elizabeth. We will be having a bigger bash sometime in the spring but that's a long way away.

There should be some news on a third beer called 'Wallops Wood' in the next few weeks but at the moment we are having to concentrate on the Swift One and the Quiver Bitter.

And now......... It's the Wallops Wood Nature page

I had a wonderful close encounter of the Buzzard kind a couple of days ago. I was taking Cara the dog for a short walk towards the offices, when a pair of Buzzards flew out, very low, from the massive Beech trees that run close to the lane. When I say close, I mean they were wheeling about not more than thirty feet above me. They kept this up for four or five minutes and I could pick out all the details of their plumage and even the glorious orange of their eyes. We just stood, stock still, while they just flew around us. It was totally captivating. Many years ago, as a child, I used to walk with my parents along some of the ancient tracks that criss cross Wiltshire. Mum and I always thrilled to see Buzzards, as in those days they were a hell of a lot rarer than they are today. We would always listen out for their mewling and watch them rising, ever higher, on a thermal updraft until they were just mere specks in the clear blue sky.

Mum died over four years ago now and the morning after her death I walked up the lane that runs passed my house. As I crested the hill a pair of Buzzards flew out from the trees and as I walked they wheeled and turned above me, crying and mewling all the time, never more than a few hundred feet away. Mums spirit perhaps?

I'm rather fond of Buzzards.