I'm staying in!

I hate firework night, celebrating a bunch of terrorists is not my idea of fun. How many young people today do you actually think know the story behind what they are doing this evening? I'm gonna hazard a guess, NOT MANY.
This evening, I am at home, in Hackney, where presumably it's fireworks going off outside, not gunfire but you never know, there are so many stupid people in this borough.
All the doors in the house are closed and yet I can smell firework smoke all over the house! yuk.
I wonder how many people will suffer burns from fireworks this year? I wonder how many irresponsible shop owners have sold fireworks illeagally to kids this year?
They are probably the same retailers who sell beers to kids and alcoholics too.
I also wonder how many of those retailers will be reported and prosecuted? I'll hazard another guess at NOT MANY!
Not much I can do about it other than report anything I see and hope that the relevant authorities do their jobs. Oh and moan like an old bastard in my blog, sounding not unlike Victor Meldrew!
Guess I'll just stay in, drink some good beer and enjoy whatever shit telly I can find!
By the way, the beers this evening are Great Divide, Titan IPA and Odells St Lupulin.

What the F*?k do I know? - Part two

So it's been 6 days since I brewed with Otley Brewing and I have to say that as back-breakingly hard work as it is being a brewer it was also a lot of fun. This is probably because I already got on well with the Otley guys as I've dealt with them a lot.

Day started at 5.45am when I woke up at home. got ready to leave the house in hackney. I got the train from paddington at 8.15, about half an hour earlier than i aimed for, off to a good start then!

I traveled all the way to Pontypridd by train and got picked up by Nick at around 11.25ish. Welsh trains...better than english ones!(for punctuality).

It was a short drive from the station and when I got to the brewery I was surprised at how small it was, not unpleasantly surprised but still, i just expected it to be bigger. it's hidden in the middle of an industrial estate and from the outside it's just another warehouse. Inside, however, is where the magic happens.

I had never been to a brewery before and never attempted any sort of home brewing so Nick placed me in the more-than-capable hands of Matt Otley who took me throught the process and showed me what occured where.

The first thing we did was decide which malts and hops to use, I had been sent a list of what they had and had already emailed back saying which ones I wanted to use so after a bit of discussion we changed one of the hops and one of the malts on the advice of Matt.

Having started before I got there, the next thing we had to do was load the malt into the mash tun, 150kg Pale, 9kg wheat and 5.5kg crystal. then I had to make sure that there was no lumps in the mash, hard work right at the start of the day! meh!

Then it was a case of leaving it for about an hour and a half whilst it produced the wort.

So, we had some time on our hands and went and got the hops ready, 520g of Chinook and 630g of Centennial to 'bitter it up' and 3.442kg of Pacific Gem to add aroma...oh yes!

This was a quick process so we still had time to kill before transferring the wort to the copper. Instead of sitting around for the time drinking tea or coffee, we started sorting out the Warehouse part of the company, putting bottles and cases on shelves, this was fine though, I prefer to be busy when I'm in a strange place(something to do with not wanting to look like a lazy bugger).

When it was time to transfer the wort to the copper Matt showed me the proccess and just left me to it, when it was finished we had to boil the wort with the hops. The next thing that had to be done was the cleaning out of the mash tun! Now, I brought this on myself by wanting to go and brew with these guys as most brewers see this as some sort of rite of passage that everyone should have to do if they're brewing, having now done this, I completely agree! Hard physical work like this makes me sweat, a lot, so whilst I was cleaning out the mash tun Matt asked me what I wanted to call the brew and I shouted back 'f*!king sweat-O at the moment!' and we had what's known in TV as a working title.

Then it was time to add the hops. First the bittering hops and after a while(sorry but I forget exactly how long) the aroma hops.

I was hoping for a beer that was about 8% abv, when we checked the gravity it turned out that it was going to be more like 7-7.2%, I was a bit disappointed but then it was the first brew i'd ever done so I put this down to being a rank amateur. We tried boiling a bit longer to get as much out of the hops as possible but it really didn't want to go any higher. We had more time to kill after putting the hops in so it was more lugging stuff about whilst we waited. I now know that when Nick Otley had said over the phone it would be more convenient for me to come down on the tuesday it was because they needed an extra pair of hands to lug shit about! cheers Nick.

I did get to see one of their one-off brews getting racked by Charlie though which was good, seeing the finings going in at that point, smelling them etc.. I wanted the whole experience and whilst I won't be around when my brew is racked I at least know what is done and help Charlie do this with the American-O.

Eventually we transferred the beer into the fermenter and I pitched the american yeast which we'd run off a bit earlier and had a lovely apple-y aroma to it. That was it basically it, Charlie or Matt will probably start conditioning this week at some point and perhaps dry hop it although i'm not convinced this will be needed.

So, one day, lots of hard work and a lot of fun, then it was time to drink, eat and be merry in that order at The Bunch of Grapes(Nick Otleys pub) with Nick and Matt. I think I lasted until about 10.30 and retired drunk, exhausted but happy that i'd learnt something new.

4 weeks to go and it'll be on at The Rake and the Otley pubs only!

Next installment of this tale will be straight after tasting the beer for the first time, the name is decided, cheesily enough we settled on Motley Brew, will let you know when it's on and we'll make a night of it.

Rotten to the Core

Happy Apple Day. There was a parade, people dressed up like apple trees, wearing all manner of food on themselves. There was Barry at the cider stall 4 deep all day.

I have never been to apple day before, this was the first year that The Rake had opened because the event was mainly happening in the Jubilee market. Not much point to us opening really but we had fun, wrote a poem in honour of the day and met a very nice brewer from Telluride Colorado who signed the 'Brewers Wall'.

The icing on this particular day was possibly the stupidest customer I have ever come accross, didn't this guy know that it's bad form to sip from a pint then ask for a top up? Stay in The Wenlock mate.

With all the happiness we were feeling from the customers we decided to write a poem about Apple Day, here it is, a collaborative effort from three staff and one customer, hope you enjoy it.

The apples are crapples,

The rotten apples rule the mar't,

They're pretty on the outside,

But inside smells of fart,

So, just don't bobbin' go there!

The beer is the gear,

Drink lots of it, don't fear,

It's more fun than a sack of big shiny cox,

And next week we're selling lambics from a box!

The liver is evil and must be punished,

but not by filthy cider,

So ingnore the parade outside,

And get some beer inside ya!

Burn all the tickers,

in big giant wickers,

Especially the cheesus,

Which cheese goes with apple?

We don't care, it's all Crapple!

So that's apple day, bring on next sunday when we have a Beer Festival to open for, I for one am very excited about this even though I have a dead tongue (Cheers Boggle!).

Hopefully see you all there, even if you don't like lambics there'll be something for you, so continuing the poetry theme....

Don't be Shy,

Give Lambics a try!

Good Times, I'll drink to that!

Here I am basking at home on my one day off this week, Jensen Button is F1 World Champion, I've just done the rota for The Rake so that it's one less job to do this week.

Exciting? Nah not for me, the excitement is from the general state of the brewing industry at the moment. Yes there are doom and gloom stories about 40 or so pubs closing a week but I do tend to look at the bright side. I work for a progressive company that's on the verge of expansion in the middle of a recession.

Lets look at what's coming up for me then. Brewdog are apparently changing the world on Tuesday, on Sunday 1st of November The Rake is having it's Lambic Festival, something that we don't think has been done in the UK before now. Next week on the 27th & 28th October I will be going to Pontypridd in South Wales to brew with Nick Otley and the guys at Otley Brewing.

I've started to look at the next Welsh Beer Festival for 2010 and we're looking at opening the Utobeer Brewery in January where we're going to let the unrelentingly witty Eddie Baines do the brewing, good times. I'll drink to that!

What the F*?k do I know?

On monday night I was about to meander off home after a hard days work and a couple of pints of Moonlights Reality Czeck Pils when Nick and Nathan from Otley Brewing company walk in with a couple of their mates. My liver instantly starts aching. They are in London for the restaurant show, where they are showcasing a couple of new bottled ales.

We have a couple of beers, shoot the breeze and the topic of my going to brew with them in Pontypridd comes up again, this is something we have been talking about for quite a while now and i've always thought great idea and one I really want to do, probably never get round to it though.

This time though, my deputy manager, Tom, is away, I'm already tired and frankly a bit pissed and I'm like, fuck yeah man, i'm there next week! Now it's real, fucking awesome!! We sort out the details of where i'm staying etc.. and all of a sudden I'm in Wales next weekend.

So what am I going to brew? My favourite style is big and Hoppy IPA's, but what about a Doubled IPA? as far as I know Nick and his team have never done a double ipa. I'm to decide what the name will be, which hops we're going to use and the style of the beer, so much power, such a small man, I think I feel like Hitler, he was a short arsee on a power trip wasn't he?

So anyway I'm now really excited about this, I'm also shit scared, I've been in the trade for most of my working life and yet I know fuck all about brewing. Bugger. Time for the research and so I wikipedia'd it and found this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=the+brewing+process&go=Go

So, theoretically I now know how to brew. Theoretically.

My next instalment of this tale will come after I have actually done the brewing and we shall ALL see how i've fared. Have I fallen on my arse or have I made a triumphant debut to brewing? Log in to find out...

Shout out to the responsible drinker!

I have often read on various websites that The Rake is full of city boys and should be given a wide berth on a Thursday and Friday. Whilst I think these are unconstructive comments, these bloggers do have a point. One recent incident (Friday afternoon, 3pm) I threw out three city boys who decided that they wanted to act like children, they ordered a bottle of Tokyo* and another couple of bottles and against my advice decided to treat the Tokyo* like a shot of Sambucca! Twats. I told them that would be their only round and they started to try and argue with me to stay in the bar. Anyone that knows me knows this is will never work and they eventually left to go and act like children somewhere else.
What's your point? I hear you ask...
My point is that whilst there are stupid, childish people who come and drink in my bar, most of the clientele are responsible people who only come for the beer. Yes the bar is small and on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday it does get packed but what pub doesn't? Yes there have been service issues in the past but myself and Tom are working hard to make sure the customer always comes first, this includes throwing out irresponsible drinkers who ruin the night for everyone else. We have specialist beer nights, tastings and festivals where people come to enjoy the beer and are still winning awards for the job we're doing so give the bar another chance, yes it's busier than ever but we're working to keep it for you, the responsible drinker.

I'd like to thank the academy...

So there I am, minding my own business, having dinner with a few hundred friends, most of whom I've never met and never heard of, and someone shouts the name of my bar out, off I go to the stage, get given something that looks like one of the new monstrous buildings that are springing up all over London, smile for the camera and off I go back to my table to be plied with Bottles of Asahi and vials of black sambucca(it's a hard life).
Seriously though, I wasn't overwhelmed at having to go to the Theme Bar Awards but that was mainly because I'd been averaging 2 hours sleep a night for the previous week and all I wanted to do was sleep!
It is another award that The Rake has won but it also reflects on how hard the whole team at Utobeer works, all year long right from Mike and Rich down to my part-time member of staff who only works one day a week. It is a great honour to be named Best Beer Venue and we'll continue to work as hard as possible to keep the newest and best products coming in for your enjoyment.
See you soon and I'd like to thank the academy.....