Happy Christmas and A great New Year!

The Festive Season is upon us now and Father Christmas has been good enough to send me a picture of what's in my stocking. I don't quite know how he's going to get them into his sack and down the chimney, but his special powers will ensure, I'm sure, that these three new 30 barrel tanks arrive on time in the brewery!

 'Tis the season of goodwill and merriment, so I'll wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Year and share with you all a picture from our very good friends, Osmo & Sari in Finland wishing everyone a Good Yule with help from Messrs Blackfriar!

 

Nollaig Chridheil is Bliadhna Mhath Ùr! Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year,
Ken

Tour, Taste at the Brewery Tap and Win a Prize!

It's been quite hectic at the brewery for the last month or so, with folk being away on holiday (me too, although I did visit five other breweries during the 4 days off, old habits being hard to break...) and new computer systems going into the office and with two new people starting work - ok, I know you can't really call it 'work' if it's in a brewery - so I'll give you a whistle stop tour of what's been going on.

Above we have the lovely people from the also lovely University of Study of Gastronomy from Piedmonte, Italy,  who popped in today for a tour and in depth technical discussion about how we brew beer. Always nice to have food and drink lovers come by for some serious organoleptic evaluation! Grazie, Amici.

 This is a Norwegian paraphrase for a well-known prayer - Our Beer, which art in the Brewery, Hallowed be Thy Name - put on to the brewery tap's mini-blackboard to welcome our guests from southern Norway, who had booked a tour and taste complete with pies on a Friday lunchtime three weeks ago.

Casks of Lia Fail and Ossian, pictured above, were the main offering at a cèilidh (dance) in Bankfoot, two weeks back, where we were helping to raise money for the Chernobyl Childrens' Lifeline, which brings children over from that radiation-poisoned part of Ukraine and Belarus each summer for a month to help them get some healthy living and fresh green vegetables. We helped to raise over £2000, thanks to the thirsty dancers.

Winter is just upon us, with Autumn's cool evenings and misty mornings turning to darkness and chill as the Earth tilts more away from the Sun. Here's my bike on the bank of the River Tay on my journey in to the brewery one Sunday morning last month, lying prostrate in front of a very elderly elderberry tree, which, despite the amount of lichen it carries, still flowers and copiously bears fruit. It's a late flowerer and therefore brings forth its berries late in the season. When the berries are just away, it acts as my natural alarm clock to remind me that the Festive Season will be upon us soon, with its attendant ale, Santa's Swallie -
 

Yo Ho Ho!

One day later here's the Almond River, 200 yards from the brewery and in the other direction my elder tree. The river is flowing under the old Inverness road bridge in spate and about to burst its bank. However you'll be glad to know that the brewery and it's stock of freshly-brewed Santa's Swallie is quite a bit higher up from the river, keeping the beer safe for everyone! Thankfully.

A small chalkboard welcome for our Swedish visitors two weeks ago - for those of you with good Swedish, you'll recognise the language is quite an old style of around 1541 AD. Continuing with the Swedish theme, we were chuffed to bits to receive a Silver Medal from the Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival 2012 for Ossian.  Tak sa mycket och Skal! Ken                                            

Blackfriar, Baking and Balsamic.

Continuing the baking theme in these pages, it's good to hear more people are trying out baking and cooking with beer. Campbell's Bakery in Crieff have been baking a beautiful loaf with Lia Fail and Ian, one of our regulars in the Brewery Tap on a Friday afternoon (come on down for a taste and a look around), brought in a heavenly loaf of bread baked with Blackfriar and chilli flakes - would be so good dipped into some extra virgin olive oil and balsamic. The previous Friday he brought in some divinely rich brownies made with Lia Fail. So baking with beer was certainly still in my mind. On Friday evening I was going to bake an ordinary gingerbread, but since there was already a half-opened botle of Blackfriar on the kitchen table, the loaf took on a new dimension. Especially when I pulled out of the cupboard the jar of ground ginger to discover it wasn't ginger at all but cardamom. Hmm... Since the butter was already melted and cooling in the frying pan and the sugar and treacle had been mixed together, I thought, 'Fair enough, carry on and add the cardamom in place of the ginger and throw in the last of my ground cinnamon - and while I'm at it, use the Blackfriar I'm drinking in place of the milk...'

You can see above a stylist's photo (all right, I took the picture, and you can also see I'm no stylist!) of the loaf complete with a well-thumbed through and stained Lofty Peak Recipe Book. The loaf did taste slightly gingery - cardamom, cinnamon and  treacle, together with the not-so secret ingredient of Blackfriar combined to give a rich, spicy warmth. Tasty and moreish. Lovely words, even for a brewer!

I'm not the only one to think that Blackfriar tastes good, as we received a postcard from our good friend Johny in Liberec, Czech Republic with his view on this mighty ale - I hope you can read them -

Diky moc & thanks very much Johny for the good words!
Slàinte,
Ken    

The Dark Side of Chocolate Cupcakes

Been on a bit of a baking frenzy this week - three dense and very moist chocolate cakes, two loaves of rye sourdough, one wheat sourdough and one batch of chocolate cupcakes. I prefer to call them fairy cakes, as there is something magical about them.

 

The extra special thing about the chocolate fairy cakes is that I used Blackfriar in the recipe. We've been brewing it for bottling this week and I've been tasting it rather more than normal. Yes it's true, there are advantages in being a brewer! Anyway back to the cupcakes or fairy cakes. The finished article was a real success and tasted divine. Moist and rich, dark chocolatey and hints of dark roasted malt. Although I've called the fairy cakes 'chocolate', there isn't any actual chocolate in the recipe as the chocolate flavours come from the cocoa, fleshed out a bit more by the caramelisation of the dark maltiness of the Blackfriar beer. The dark muscovado-type sugar also adds its hints of treacle and molasses which really round of the flavours here.

Well worth a try and ever so easy.

40g soft margerine - I use the well known brand named for the bird that is said to deliver babies.

130g dark brown sugar

100g plain flour

1 & 1/2  tsp baking powder

40g cocoa powder

1 egg medium - from Hugh Grierson's free range honesty shop past Tibbermore

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

120ml Blackfriar Ale - indulge in a glass of the remainder whilst the oven works its wonders.

I use a wooden spoon and a big earthenware bowl for everything - a lot easier to clean and even better for getting your finger to scrape the last bit out.

Oven on to 170c. Tray with 12 fairy cake cases at the ready.

Mix marg, sugar, flour, baking powder and cocoa together to make a a well-combined crumble. Don't eat any! Not until it's baked...

In a bowl or measuring jug whisk the egg and stir in the beer and vanilla extract. Add this to the chocolatey crumble and stir in steadily, just to get it smooth and mixed. Don't beat it too much or you'll drive out the bubbles to lift the cakes up.

Spoon into the cases and into the oven for 15 minutes or until springy to touch.

Let cool for 5 minutes in baking tray then carefully put on to wire rack.

I like to dust them with icing sugar and then enjoy with a cup of Lady Grey tea.

Oh yes...

Slàinte and Happy Baking, Ken

Triple Brewing and How To Go Forth and Multiply

Something we've been doing for quite few years now is triple brewing - not brewing tripel, the Belgian strong blond ale as in Westmalle Tripel or Chimay White - but simply doing three brews consecutively into one fermenting vessel. If one's brewlength (the amount of each brew, i.e., 30 barrels) and FV capacity are the same then there is no need for such extravagant behaviour, however if one has a FV thrice as large as the brewlength, then doing three brews consecutively into said FV will work effectively. The brews can go in three days in a row, which what we do currently with Bigger Bertha (its other name being CT7)  shown below, or straight after each other, without a break, if one is shift brewing around the clock. The first at 8am, the second at 3pm and the third at 10 pm.

Our regular brewlength is 30 bbls (barrels) or in metric speak, 50hl (hectolitres or 100 ltres). We have 4 sizes of FVs - 20, 30, 60 & 120 bbls which means most of our brewing is in 30 bbl aliquots. The two smaller 20 bbl FVs get  brews of 20 bbls and the 30 bbl FVs get the standard 30 bbl brewlengths. But for the two larger FVs (FV8 at 60 bbl and CT7 at 120 bbl, the latter revelling in its status as a dual-purpose vessel - fermenting and conditioning) the dark arts of double and triple brewing must be practised. Those of you with a mathematical bent will be asking yourselves why we don't do quadruple brewing into the largest tank being of four times our standard brewlength of 30 bbls. The answer is we need some freeboard or space above the fermenting wort for the yeast head to rise up. And indeed it does. Especially with the stronger beers. For Blackfriar, our 7% Scotch Ale, for example, we'll brew 3 x 20bbl brews into FV8 and it likes to foam up with serious intent. 

I was reminded of this today by our summer placement student from Heriot-Watt University, Liam, who asked how much yeast we pitch into a double or triple brew. A good question. We pitch 10 litres of yeast slurry to give 18 million cells per ml of wort for the first brew of 30 bbls which is oxygenated for 30 minutes. As the cells take up the nutrients and the oxygen present in the wort, the yeast cells multiply sufficiently to be able to cope with the next brew coming in. This second brew only gets 10 minutes of oxygenation, which allows the now-multiplied yeast to grow even more to be able to ferment the doubled brew in the FV and also, after the third brew is added without any oxygen, to continue the fermentation to completion. A simple tale of yeast going forth into the fermenter and multiplying.

Lia Fail yeast head getting going in style

It's important to get enough yeast cells to ferment out the wort but we don't want too many otherwise the beer will have the wrong flavour, and beer is all about flavour. Having the yeast multiply, generally fourfold during a fermentation, is good for our flavour characteristics, and it's also a lot easier and simple to pitch 15 litres into a brew than 60 litres. 

As far as yeast vessels are concerned, we use simple 25 ltr drums into which yeast is run, merely by opening the valve and letting the yeast slurry flow in gently, from the bottom of the cone of an FV of one of the previous week's fermentations.

The drums are stored in a fridge at 3 degrees C where they sit until needed for brewing over the following 6 days. I wouldn't really want to leave the yeast in the fridge longer than a week as it will begin to lose viability and vitality quite rapidly after then. Pitching involves the yeast being pumped into the FV in-line with the oxygenated wort using our yellow peristaltic pump shown below. 

This pump from the peristaltic experts, Watson-Marlow, works like a hand milking a cow, gently squeezing the milk down a teat into the milk-bucket, by gently squeezing the yeast through a flexible hose (the clear hose coming out of the right-hand side of the pump) into the fast-flowing wort coming from the heat-exchanger and thus into the FV, getting good mixing with the wort in the process. 

Our pitching set above, where wort travels along the green hose and the pale beige yeast slurry is coming in from the left. We find this method of pitching gives consistent results in fermentation and flavour and it certainly beats opening up a fermenter lid and pouring in 15 litres of slurry and helps avoid infections from wild yeasts and bacteria which will do no good for the taste of the beer. And what we're all about is, of course, the taste of the beer! Like in this pint of Thrappledouser...

Slàinte! Ken

Brewer on tour - from Blair Atholl to Athol, Massachusetts.

As you'll have noticed the blogs have been a wee bit thin on the ground recently. Mea culpa, as I've been overseas to the United States of America. Athol in Massachusetts to be precise, helping the town celebrate its 250th anniversary, in my humble capacity as an Atholl Highlander, the Duke of Atholl's personal bodyguard and army, based at Blair Castle, Blair Atholl, Perthshire. We were away for two weeks, ten days in Athol staying with host families, then one night in Boston, finishing up with 4 days in Bermuda, opening the first ever Bermuda Highland Games, being billeted in the Royal Bermudan Regiment's Warwick Camp. I'll start off with some high points of our stay in Athol.

The very fine Derek and the late great Will Sellars - who were tasked with looking after Niall and me in Athol. We think we won the jackpot with the host pairings - the best people who could not do enough for us. Will, on the right, passed away unexpectedly a week after our return. A tragic loss to all who knew him, as he was an upstanding gentleman - a Virginian and a Scot of ancient descent - immensely proud of his heritage and very knowledgeable of Scottish and American History. We only knew him for 6 days, but I felt he was like an elder brother. A caring, fun and kind man, ever ready to stand up for those in need. A good storyteller and a fine singer too. We'll all miss him.

The bar in our host's house - being a good 25 minute drive away from the centre of Athol, it was a very pleasant room to spend some relaxation time. The fridge was full of lovely beers - Wachusett and Berkshire Brewing, to name but a few. As one sipped at the fine ales, through the window (seen from the garden in the first picture of this piece above, to the left of the flags) could be seen a bird feeder - not for sparrows or chaffinches, but for hummingbirds. Amazing tiny birds - stunningly irridescent and beautiful - a real treat for us.

One of the Athol hosts, Jerome, in his garage beside his pride and joys - his classic XJS Jaguar and his three barrel self-built brewery. He had a 'kegerator' in the kitchen which contained 4 kegs of his homebrews on tap - excellent beer and very tasty indeed. A good brewer for sure. I suspect there a quite a few microbrewers in this country who could learn a thing or two from Jerome. One of our Atholl Highlanders did very well staying with Jerome and his wife Liz! Four beers on tap in the kitchen - Wow! Super people who certainly know how to put on a cracking party.

'Hey, let's go and visit another brewery...'
'Ok, if you insist...'

And what a brewery it was. Berkshire Brewing Company, in South Deerfield, in Western Massachusetts, has been going 19 years. Founded by homebrewers Chris and Gary, it's a really friendly homely brewery that brews fantastic beer. I felt so much at home there on our tour with my fellow Highlanders Ross and Kevin and their host Don. Here we are, below, in the Dick Schatz taproom inside the brewery. The late Dick Schatz was one of the band of helpers in the Berkshire Brewing Co. (BBC)'s early days, when friends would come down and pitch in unpaid with hand bottling or scrubbing out tanks. He left his huge collection of American Breweriana to BBC and they honoured his memory with this lovely bar.

Out in the fermenting cellars. Like us, they pretty much brew ale, with one or two bottom-fermenting styles. BBC brews about four times as much as we do at Inveralmond, but there is still the same attention to detail and passion for the beer.

Ssshhh... Beer sleeping quietly in the lagering cellars.

The growler cleaning team and a real jolly pair. A growler is the standard term for the brown half-gallon flagon used by most new breweries in the US, seen coming out of the washer.

A sneaky shot from the men's restroom - complete with the super homebrewing magazine, Zymurgy. If you're serious about homebrewing, get a subscription - just google it. It comes from Boulder in Colorado, but it's high quality homebrewing information with good articles and plenty of practical knowledge.

Back in the taproom with a shot of the full beer range on draught. If you get the chance to pop in, do. You'll not be disappointed. Great beer, great people with a great attitude. As the BBC t-shirts say, 'Things are looking up!'

Next brewery - ok, we were there as the Atholl Highlanders doing gigs here there and everywhere, but we did in fact do a show at this next brewery. In Merrimack in New Hampshire (state motto on every number plate - 'Live Free or Die!') is the Anheuser-Busch Budweiser Brewery. The smallest of their 16 breweries in the US, it was still the size of a small city.

Real live brewing heritage, folks, Bud-style. Not our great piper Ross - he's just there to give the brewery behind some scale - but the plastic horse, Big Scott, who was one of the renowned Budweiser Dray Clydesdales. There is a huge stable block here, where they keep one of the Clydesdale teams. The horses seem to be a bigger attraction than the beer, so much was made of them during our tour.

The famous Budweiser USA beechwood chip lagering tanks. There were seemingly  hundreds of them.  The tour took in the major points of brewing Bud, from the malt and rice rail wagons, through the brewhouse with its rice cookers, mash tuns, lauter tuns and hop kettles and on to the fermentation cellars. One of the interesting things about Bud is that these lagering tanks, laid inside up to a foot deep with beechwood chips to allow the yeast to continue to mature the beer for 21 days by remaining in contact with the beer rather than flocculating and settling on to the vessel floor, are krausened, or primed, with a percentage of freshly fermenting beer. A traditional German practice, but not unsurprising, as most of the older US brewing techniques came from Germany. Quite a labour-intensive operation - adding the chips and then taking them out afterwards all by hand to clean and so on. Nice to see it still continued by a Very Large Brewery.  

An Inveralmond T-shirt smuggled inside the sanctum sanctorum of the brewery tasting room. I was expecting the security heavies to hustle me out double-quick!

The famous New England Clambake, put on for us by the Athol 250 Committee, as seen in the musical 'Carousel', although there may be more lobster visible than clam. Truly sensational. A big fire within the stone cicle is started, then plenty of seaweed laid on top, then buckets of fresh clams and lobster, then covered with more seaweed and finally a tarpaulin. This allows the steam from the wet seaweed cook the seafood to perfection. Delicious.

The Blind Pig, Athol. One of the Great Pubs of the World. I cannot recommend the Pig enough - great staff, great customers and great pub grub, topped off with a superb selection of crafty brews on draught. A beer festival in itself. The beer fridge at the end of the bar holds a cornucopia of first-rate New England micros - go visit and enjoy. Summer opening hours 11am - late M-F, closed Sat/Sun.

Friendly folk beside the flowers - always like a bar that has fresh flowers in a vase on the bar. The locals kept buying us beer and we felt this was a wonderful and honourable tradition that we should indulge ourselves in. Thanks everyone! The hospitality was overwhelming and humbling, but we did give as good as we got. One of the pipers Ross, already seen in these notes, got up his pipes and stood up on the bar cranking out a few good tunes for us to sing along to, then he would go into what became known as 'the Death March' - he would step off the bar on to a bar stool in time with the beat and then off into mid-air without looking, expecting us to scrabble madly about placing bar stools under his feet as he marched around the bar on to the hastily-placed bar stools! Incredibly, each time this happened, his foot would land on to a stool just in time. Nerve-wracking for us rushing around with the stools, but hilarious to watch!

The Pig in all her glory - kitted out in fine Scottish style, wearing her own Athol 250th Anniversary Medal (on the purple ribbon) which we were all presented with in the Town Hall at a grand ceremony after a march through the town with colours flying and fixed bayonets. In the soaking rain, I might add, but it didn't detract from the occasion, merely add to the heightened emotions.

Young Niall and I flanking Carol and Deb, who was also looking after us in excellent fashion, from the Athol Town Library, proudly showing us the bold extension plans for the venerable building. Ah yes, Culture - I remember it well...

Get on the bus, get off the bus. Where's the next gig? What are playing? Who are we playing for?

Some  post-gig lite refreshment

To be continued...Slàinte, Ken

Dusty Miller and the truth of the Grind

We've been quite busy in the brewery in the last few weeks and posting a wee blog has been somewhat overlooked, so I'll try to remedy this with a few words and pictures on malt. More specifically on milling malt for brewing in our infusion mash tun..

When we grind the whole grains of malted barley in our mills, we're looking to unlock the soluble starch inside the husk so that our hot liquor (brewing water) can wet thoroughly the starchy granules in the mash tun. Here the the starch dissolves into the liquor and the malt enzymes, encased in the aleurone layer of the malt grain, then are able to start working their magic in turning the starch into sugars. Their work, in cleaving the long polysaccharide molecule chains into shorter sugar molecule chains, changes the indeterminate porridgy mash, or 'mash goods' into a distinct and discrete sweet wort and grain husk mixture, with the grain husks floating on top of the crystal clear sugary wort, or into the 'wort and grain bed'.

If the malt has been milled or crushed too finely, there is a tendency for the grain husks not to float on the wort, but to sink down and cause trouble and lengthy delays in the wort run-off to the copper - the dreaded 'stuck mash' and getting clogged up on the mash tun filter plates, where the wort is strained through slotted or perforated stainless steel plates, leaving the grain husks or spent grain or draff to be augured out for cattle feed. Another problem with too fine a grind, is that the malt husks contain much tannins, which can cause excessive astringency in the beer, if the husk is broken up too much.

Too rough a grind, with the grain husks hardly scuffed, will not expose enough of the white starch to the hot liquor, resulting in poor extract and a lower gravity of wort from the mash.

Above you can see the sample port of our two-roller mill, showing a sample of the grist (past participle of grind) which has come through the mill, on its way to the grist case. The malt has not been ground like flour, not even like wholemeal or stoneground flour, as the husk sizes are far too big. The gap between the two rollers is 1.50 mm, which is sufficient to crack open the malt kernels, yet not break the husk up completely, so that we have plenty of big husk fragments, each having a bubble of air attached, which allow the grain bed, as we call the body of husks, to float successfully above the draining out wort.

Here is another shot of a sample of grist, just on a plain white background for contrast.Plenty of husk fragments, looking almost as if they had been cleft lengthways. The malt starch granules don't show up too well as they are white also! A perfect crush for an infusion mash tun.

 And here is the cone of grist inside the grist case from today's Blackfriar. The grist does look very pale, considering Blackfriar is quite a dark beer, but then the dark crystal and roasted malts only consist of about 7% of the grain bill.

That'll be getting mashed in at 6.30 tomorrow morning, so I'd better see if I have a bottle of Blackfriar in the cupboard to celebrate the brew with in the evening!
Slàinte,
Ken

Beer on the Move - How to transfer beer from FV to Conditioning Tank, Road Tanker or Filter.

Here's a shot I took at a well known Czech brewery, which is famous for the 70 day maturation or lagering of its beer. The hoses coming from the right into the mixing manifold are taking the beer from two 200hl (121 barrel) horizontal cellar tanks to the filtration room through the manifold, which in Czech is called the nanny-goat, because its looks like the goat's udders (!). The beer then goes to the pump in the background and thence off to the filter buffer tank. The wooden beck or large bucket is there to take the overflow from the bleed-off valves on top of the sight-glasses via the small red hoses.

Whereas back at Inveralmond Castle, you can still see the red hoses, albeit with a smaller bore, with the beer coming out of FV8 (Big Bertha) through the sightglass then into the pump and off to the filter assembly. Below there is a similar set up - Conditioning Tank (CT7 - Bigger Bertha, 120 Barrels) valve on left, sightglass, T-piece with CO2 line and 1/4"gas valve then beer hose to pump. Our pump is known by its more prosaic name 'Big Pump' -  two stage centrifical pump for those with an interest in such things, which works by an impeller spinning around inside the stainless housing at the front (the blue rear is just a huge heavy motor) and this impeller flings via centrifugal force the beer up through the outlet on the top of the pump off to its destination. Imagine you were spinning a bucket of beer around your head at 1500rpm and there was a small hole in the bottom of aforesaid bucket - how far would the beer spurt out and more importantly, who would clean up afterwards? But that's simply how centrifical pumps work.    

You'll be asking yourself why the sightglass and T-Piece with CO2 valve, I am sure. Well, the sightglass is to show when the tank is empty and when we're getting to the bottom we watch it like a hawk, as we don't want to send too much yeast or tank bottoms that have sedimented out during the cold-conditioning of the beer off to the filter or to the road tanker, which latter will be going off for bottling. The Co2 line is there to flush the whole Transfer Line or Tx line with CO2 all the way to the destination tank/er, which has its own T-piece, to push out any remaining sterilant (in our case peroxyacetic acid, which is a harmless terminal, ie no rinse needed, sterilant) and most important of all, any oxygen to the drain.

Oxygen, essential to yeast for growth and any successful fermentation, is to be avoided and excluded as much as possible after fermentation as it oxidises, not oxygenates, the beer to cause rapid staling and unwanted off-flavours in the beer. So the CO2 flush is a must before bringing the beer down the line and the first part of the beer goes to the drain first before opening up simultaneously the tank inlet/T-piece drain valve. Below you can see the tanker rear for Ossian from yesterday. Bottom right is the beer line in with the valve handle, then the T-piece with its drain valve closed, and the fittings leading from the 1&1/2 inch line to the 3inch tank inlet valve. On the left is the drain line now attached to the tanker overflow line with its valve out of view, which controls the top pressure in the tanker. We like to fill tankers at about 1 bar top pressure to prevent any fobbing of the beer as it's filling, and to assist in this beer tankers always have a pressure gauge on the overflow line.     

When the tanker is just about full, beer fob or foam will flow down the drain line and when it turns to beer, the tanker is full. Overflow valve off, Tanker inlet valve off. Pump off. Close off beer line valve and disconnect and then wash down with sterilant, close up back door, seal up and send tanker on its way.

With moving beer between FV and Conditioning Tank, the principle is the same - sterilise the CT with the Tx line and pump with peroxyacetic (1/2% solution v/v) first, then drain, take off plug of yeast in FV, connect up sightglass and CO2 T-piece to FV outlet, flush TX line downstream through pump into CT with CO2 to create a blanket of CO2 within the CT to protect the beer form air and oxygen, then close off CO2 line and then open up FV outlet, so that the rough beer can flow down the line into the CT. We let the beer flow into CT as much as possible under gravity but eventually we'll switch on the pump to complete the process as beer doesn't like flowing uphill often! When the FV is empty or the pump starts to suck out the yeasty tank bottoms, it's shut off the pump, close off FV outlet and then use the CO2 to push the last aliquot of beer in line through to CT and then close off CT inlet and CT overflow line, gas off and disconnect gas line. Disconnect beer line from CT, wash down CT valve with sterilant and then connect beer line to drain to allow the cleaning of the FV to place. Have cup of tea, or, in extreme cases, to celebrate another succesful Transfer of Beer retire to a Place of Sanctity and Sanity and enjoy a fine glass of beer, like Aleš below, from aforesaid well-known Czech brewery who celebrates his name day (svátek) tomorrow on April 13.

Na Zdraví & Slàinte! Ken

Organoleptic Evaluation, Ale Conning or Ale Tasting - Ancient and Modern

In the Days of Yore, ale was officially tasted or organoleptically evaluated, to use contemporary brewery jargon, and approved or condemned by the Ale Conners, or Knowers of Ale, whose task it was, charged to them by the Incorporated Trades Guilds of the Town, to judge the very quality and substance of the ale brewed for sale within the policies of the township. In Perth the Guilds were incorporated by William the Lion of Scotland's Charter of Perth in 1210, so they have been around for a long time.

The method for testing the ale was quite simple and consisted of 6 parts:

Part the First - Attire thyself with leathern breeches.

Part the Second - Avail thyself of a flagon of the ale in question.

Part the Third - Pour one quarter of the flagon on to a bench.

Part the Fourth - Sit thyself down upon aforementioned bench.

Part the Fifth - Quaff the remainder of the flagon and indulge in timely conversation with thy neighbour.

Part the Sixth - Upon draining the flagon, stand up and turn to observe the bench; if it be stuck to thy leathern-clad rear, then the ale be proven to be underfermented with sticky malt worts and unfit for sale, whereby the brewer be punished; yet, however, if thy rear be free of aforementioned bench, then the ale be proven cleansed and fit for sale and the brewer be complemented.

In these modern times, the ale is still tested and tasted, though without the deliberate spillage on the bench. The Guildry Incorporation of Perth continues its centuries-old practice of ale tasting and below is a picture, in the modern style, of your correspondent in the fine hostelry of Greyfriars, during their triennial Ale Tasting last week, holding forth upon a bottle of Blackfriar, which the Guildry's Ale Conners are analysing with great thought and determination.

The Blackfriar was proven cleansed and fit for sale.

Slàinte, Ken