Dude, where’s my ark?

Nothing will kill any romantic ideas about brewing faster than having to do a brew in weather that would give any decent movie CGI department a run for their money. Rain and wind has been the theme of the last couple of weeks, with doors being blown off their hinges and rain and mud being trawled through our nice clean brewery. The sales department (or Mart as I call him) hasn’t been spared either – if you run into him at one of the markets, ask him to show you the picture of how he had to build a yurt around his van a couple of weeks ago at Riverside just to avoid being blown into the Taff.

Not that we ‘re downhearted, mind you (Soggy, yes. Downhearted, no.). The Untapped fans haven’t let us down; venturing out to make sure that whatever else they run out of or can’t find this winter, good beer isn’t going to be one of them.  Captain Oates, eat your heart out. And it hasn’t been all bad. One of the great advantages to brewing is that as winter gets worse, so the brewery gets toastier. It’s amazing how the dropping temperature is inversely proportional to the amount of visitors we get from the winery next door. And I have discovered that the ceramic heater in the lab is a perfect fit for my stovetop expresso maker (although it does tend to colour any tasting sessions held straight after ‘Hmm…I’m getting coffee…)

And best of all, we now have our winter beer brewed and about to be released. ‘Ember’ (as we finally decided to call it after more discarded ideas than receipts from an MP’s expense book) will be on sale this weekend. Provided the labels show up. Which they should tomorrow. So we’ve been promised.

By the way – sorry we haven’t posted anything for a bit – we’ve been buried getting brews done for all the Christmas markets we’re doing in the next few weeks. I promise we will be back with more nearly coherent rambling soon.