Bittersweet Success

On Monday one brewer went sick and we ran out of barrels and had to stop brewing. On Tuesday two brewers went sick and one brewer spent the day doing not very much very badly and we ran out of barrels and had to stop brewing. I have rewritten my brewing plan for this week so many times that Excel is no longer asking “do you want to save the changes to Brewplan.xls?” and instead just flashes up “are you taking the piss?”. Such is life at 60% growth approaching Christmas and it’s a nice problem to have (so I am told).


On the positive side I have just been shopping and am most of the way to having bought a second boiler, two new FVs, cask handling systems and an new such and such. I also got 60 for my last assignment in this year’s Masters thesis. Abbey Christmas is going very well. The initial brew of 600 barrels had gone before the first week was up. A cask of it will be down at St Roger of Ryman’s Charity beer festival on Saturday.

Owing to my current struggle with demand and supply and my impending transatlantic brewing expedition I am having to forgo an evening with the beer writers and a jolly watching England dismantle South Africa. But I’m not bitter, I always prefer brewing beer to talking about it and the BBC3 highlights are very fine as long as you have managed to avoid the media and your in box all day.

To anyone who is going to the BGBW dinner on Thursday I hope you have a great evening and enjoy the Indian-style food with the American-style beers.