Over The Top

Well, that was an experience. For the first time ever I have got two batches of ale on at the same time and I can't shake the idea that I may have killed one. Still, I have said this before about my brewing efforts and been proven wrong so let's hope that this is a similar panic.

What can I say? Grenade is now onto secondary fermentation and I have Bayonet started - which is going to be a pretty sharp IPA if all things go according to plan.

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Here's hopping...

Ongoing adventures in beer brewing, if adventures be the right word, following a lovely night out that just proved that, actually, I am a lightweight. Just eight halves and now I have a headache - ridiculous. Mind you, I visited a bunch of places locally that I'd never been to before so that was nice.

Anyway, yes, today was the fifth day since starting the brewing of Grenade and so a good point to add my hops.

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The Grenade

Ready yourselves and get in some protective clothing, for I have embarked on the next brewing adventure (and a long time coming it has been too!). Further to my boasts (carefully placed with people so that I couldn't back out) I have now started the next batch of brewing this morning on my return from our progress down south, beyond London even. So, yes, there's that.

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Home Brew Review: Bubba's APA

This was the second bottle of home brew I was gifted back when I was in Leeds, here, and, alas, the last. It was the nicer of the two brews on the night as I recall and so I was saving it. However, I was also terribly impatient because I drank it when there was nothing special happening beyond the fact that it was the weekend and I fancied a beer.

I refer, of course, to Bubba's American Pale Ale.

This being a home brew, you can't get any more, but I am given to understand that there is a stronger variant being brewed (7% ABV actually) and that if you are very nice to the brewer there is a chance of gaining some to try yourself. So, on that note, would you like to know more?

Grayson Perry

I'm not sure whether or not I've spoken of Grayson Perry, the transvestite artist who won the Turner prize and got a CBE from Prince Charles (who, admirably, did not look the least bit startled or abashed in presenting it), before. In introducing him thus, however, I am falling for one of the simplest and most galling tendencies in popular British culture at the moment and, at the same time, being frightfully binary in my discussion of gender.

Perry wins the Turner prize.

Yes, it's going to be one of those posts in which I muse aloud on things such as Feminism and society, so if this is not your bag you maybe want to look away now and hit the 'Beer Review' tag to your right!

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Home Brew Review: Milestone IPA

I have been looking forward to trying this particular home brew properly since my trip to Leeds. It was very much over-shadowed by the power and quality of the first home-brew, Bubba's APA, being a dry-hopped and fruity little number. Therefore I was anxious to let this one have a bit of space and time to breathe and work though it in splendid isolation, as I feel it suffered a bit unfairly.

I refer, of course, to Milestone IPA, brewed by m'colleague.

Would you like to know more? I think you should, even if this is beyond your reach, it says something for brewing generally and is a chance for me to capture something that will not oft be repeated, the ultimate in exclusive ale!

One Lovely Blog

Normally I don't do this sort of thing. But, in this instance, I shall make an exception. There's a blog hop thing happening called "One Lovely Blog" where one gets nominated by a blogger and the idea is you share seven things about yourself and link to fifteen other blogs and the one that nominated you. I'm not sure I read fifteen other blogs, but I thought I'd try. It goes without saying that I get so little traffic that I'm sure the blogs I recommend won't even notice that I linked them, but should they do so, they ought to feel zero compunction to join in. I suspect I am the blog sharing equivalent of a dead end to be honest.

If this isn't your bag, there's my usual line break coming up. Before that, I was nominated by Willow C Winsham over at Latimer's Library, which is lovely. I think. Now, if you do not wish to know anything about the person that reviews beers and things (and God knows, they will tell you more than you probably wanted to know about me anyway) you can forget you saw this and move on. At least check out the linked blog though.

Fountains of Beer

An update on the brewing situation follows. I'll bet you all though you were safe because of the fact that the SG reading was being strange, didn't you? Well, have no fear, things have moved on apace and I have caused Willow to literally cry with laughter and go white with fear, all within a minute! Yes, it has been an interesting time with the brewing...

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Scraping the bottom of the barrel

I finally transferred the beer from the bucket to the barrel. It is a tale of woe that will make ye glad ye be not a pirate! Or... a brewer, or something. Anyway, yes, the saga continues and the amounts of it I got in mouth (attempting to get it to syphon into the barrel) suggest that the extended bucket brewing haven't made it too evil or undrinkable.

As ever, continue if you wish to know more.

Burping Beer

Well, it's four days in and the Berry Bad Beer is very much under steam. If you would like some more detail on this and the mead that I bought (that is green) then you are welcome to read on. Otherwise, the page break is there to give you the chance to bail out now.

Someday I hope to find a place where these grow locally, we had such a place (by the railway bridge) where we used to live but nothing here yet. I mean, I can go to town (literally) more now, but there's something about trees and woodland that I miss. No doubt we'll find something as we live here.

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B- B- B- Brewing

Aha, yes, marking is now finished for the national boards (I still have some others to do for work, but I should have enough time coming up) and there is free time once more. So, that means more beer reviews that I can actually do and get posted. It means being able to check out the local micro-brewery again and it means that it is time for the brewing adventures to begin once more!

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Curry Night in Leeds

So, this was a little different to a cultural beer exchange in that there wasn't really an opportunity to share the same beers with people nor compare beers from different locales. However, it was a night to check out multiple craft ales and to have a decent curry for the first time in ages. Say what you like about where I live at the moment, but the curry really isn't what I'm used to.

Reviews of the beers imbibed are necessarily truncated because I forgot to take a pad to record my thoughts and the main purpose of the trip was to share my own home brew with the colleagues that had procured the kit for me in the first place!

Stay

Music review time. Because this place has been dead for too long of late and I must try and get it going again. What better way, thought I, than hearkening back to a time and a place that is far removed from today. Sunday School, when I was still but a callow youth and not yet fully in my teens, a place where I heard, for the first ever time by the by, the term 'Satanic' used about popular culture. Now, don't get me wrong, my Sunday School was not one to use that term very much (if at all) and my experience of religion was not to be tainted very much by it being applied to popular culture. No, this was special.

I refer, of course, to the music video for one of the songs that really helped me define the early '90s whilstr I was still there rather than helped me to define what they were long after I had left. Shakespeare's Sister's Stay. Eh, this could get boring quickly. Would you like to know more?

Unmasking

It is a point of pride that I can conceal much of who I am on this blog if I want. Not for people who actually know me IRL, of course, but for the most part my style is sufficiently different that I can use plausible deniability. I am about to end that once and for all. Sorry.

If you prefer not to know, then don't click below.

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Hoppy New Beer

It's another tale of brewing, beer guts and beards this time and I make no bones about it. A stag is sitting and going steadily flat, there are people who drink the brew and there are plans within plans that may or may not allow the spice to flow.

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Christmas Day Review

It's Christmas Day. I have not been reviewing beers regular like on this here blog as mostly I have been drinking my own brew (which it wouldn't be right for me to review, save for the fact that I find it to be a nice light ale) and then I have been trying to clear the decks with marking and whatnot. Also, I'm lazy.

Anyway, what follows is a (heavily sarcastic) battle report of the day. You can skip onto the beer review I shall be posting in a moment if you prefer.

Would you really like to know more? Be sure now!

Outstanding

It's another random blogging post. Not even a beer review, let alone part of the epic story for the Boy that this blog is supposed to be about! Oh well. It's also fairly boring, I can't claim anything of interest to the passing visitor.

So, as usual, would you like to know more?

Bottling it

It's another title that has two meanings! Okay, it's not as subtle as I would have liked. Sure enough, it's another post about brewing and the adventures therein. Come in if you'd like to see the beer gut made wordy.

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Art

A while back the family went to have look in Little Narnia (no, really) and saw something that has stayed with us since then.

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'Splody Things

Today was a day that shall be long-remembered as it was the day that I attempted to get some of the barrelled beer into bottles. No, I didn't check the SG again, it has been at a constant 14 since I last wrote about it (and I'm none the wiser as to whether that is good or bad), but I have tasted it and it does taste considerably better than my first attempt to explain it here. So, armed with two bottles of independent procurement and borrowed crown caps I made two bottles to take north at some point in December.

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