Ossian on Tour in Outer Hebrides

Was over in cycling and holidaying in Barra recently for what we call in Gaelic am mìos pògan. Translated it means The Month of Kisses, which you'll know as Honeymoon. I was very chuffed to find that the good lady had packed a few bottles of Ossian into our saddle bags. The beer was greatly enjoyed with our sandwiches at the top of the neolithic and bronze age hillforts that we visited. That's the mighty Atlantic behind me standing on top of the very dramatic and naturally-fortified Dùn Bàn, a few miles west of Castlebay.

I had thought about taking over a polypin on my bike (as below when I delivered beer to the Gordon Duncan Memorial National Treasure concert in Perth Concert Hall) on the ferry from Oban to Barra, but decided in the end that my main tipple would be whisky as Barra was where Whisky Galore was filmed (although the island in Compton Mackenzie's book is Todday)and because the 36 pint polypin might have been all drunk during the 7 hour ferry crossing! So the Ossian bottles were a real treat. Tapadh leat mo leannan-sa bhriagha! Thanks my lovely darling!

Back at the brewery now and getting on with sorting out draught Lia Fail for export to Sweden.

In the meantime Happy Cycling! And Monthes of Kisses!

Slàinte,

Ken

Out with the Old - In with the New...

We had a few wee tears welling up in our collective eyes this morning, as our old 10-barrel brewery - mash tun, copper, hot and cold liquor tanks together with 3 FVs plus assorted odds and ends - was loaded on to the lorry above. Destination South to Paul at Northumbrian Real Ale, whom we wish the best of fortune and fun brewing great beer on what was really good kit for us. We did over 2000 brews on it over 12 years before we outgrew it and got to know it all quite well. But nothing stays the same, so we're getting ready inside the brewery to commission our new 120 barrel conditioning tank below (CT7 at the moment) which is being constructed up in Drummuir (in a former distillery, by the way) by the same folk who made the FVs on the lorry above. The dimpling on the sides forms part of the cooling jackets, which will enable us to keep the maturing beer cold, but they'll be hidden by the 50mm of insulation and a thin stainless steel outer skin.

So here's a toast to the old and a welcome to the new!

Slàinte, Ken

Bridalezillas Wedding Extravaganza...

There was a wedding a few weeks back, which gave rise to that proud and noble institution, the bridale or wedding-ale.

As the tale goes in that great Finnish epic 'The Kalevala', the bridale must be brewed before the wedding feast - (Chapter 20, Slaughtering an Ox and Brewing), so at the beginning of August, our last brew of Inkie Pinkie for this summer was decreed as the Bridale for your humble correspondent's wedding to the Lovely Lady Arlene.

On the Day Itself, There was The Exchange of Vows, The Cutting of The Cakes (Dundee Cake on the flashing cake-stand and a Chocolate Sponge for the youngsters)  and perhaps the most vital ceremony of all, since there is brewing in the blood - The Tapping of The Cask, complete with tap-bearing bride and mallet-wielding groom being marched around the hall by the Pipe-Major before the happy deed was done.

With a certain ivory dress in close proximity it's a good thing I've had plenty of experience at putting in cask taps...

A Bonnie Bride, a Delicious Bridale and a Great Cèilidh!

Slàinte

Ken

Wood Fired Beer!

Here's a wee pic of my first brewery - Leederville, Perth, Western Australia, circa 1991. Wood-fired - no electric or gas, just a firebox for heating.

We've been having a bit of a home-brew discussion in the brewery this week, as 3 of us are regular practitioners of this dark art, so I had a look at home for some relevant snaps.

To those of a technical bent, there will be seen a mash tun, insulated with wood (1'' x 2'' dressed all-round for the carpenter amongst you), hydrometer, sparge liquor tank - with patented slotted spoon sparge distribution system - Redhead matches and pencil (why pink I cannot remember) for brewing notebook. The wort running into the 10 gallon copper cauldron - it's the old clothes washhouse copper in the shed at the bottom of my garden- was for an 120/- Edinburgh Strong Ale. The boil itself should have taken 90 minutes, but my pals and I were having so much fun chopping up the old blocks of jarrah, an Australian really hardwood, to feed the firebox underneath that the boil lasted four hours! Had to keep adding water to keep the gravity down....

The beer was called Flaming Copper Cauldron and had an adequate strength of 7.7% abv. Tasting it was like a leap back into Scotland's brewing heritage - strong, heady, dark, rich, malty and sweet, oh so sweet, but still luscious and lasting...I even won Homebrewer of the Year with it.

Times like these, oh they were the days...but now we have Blackfriar. Huzzah!

Slàinte, Ken

Student Daze

We've had a young brewing student, Liam, from Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University, over the last two months learning about brewing at the coal face, far away from the Hallowed Groves of Academe and the Search for Enlightenment.

He has been accompanied by young Czech brewing student Alesh Potesil, below, from Pivovarsky Dum in Prague, for the past three weeks, in learning the ropes in a production brewery specialising in ale, unlike the pilsner beers he knows well.

Chez Inveralmond, the daily quest for wisdom is relatively simple, yet complex: for example - how to get the young beer from fermenter into conditioning tanks and with which hoses and pumps and which bit goes where without having a beer fountain (much more fun and funnier than that of chocolate - if it's someone else's doing) or getting the wrong hoses connected to the wrong tank, thus leading to very grim-faced head brewer and an ashen-faced student.

Therefore the motto here is similar to that of carpenters, measure twice, cut once. In our case, check route of beer twice, then open valve. Liam has been doing a grand job and is discovering that practical brewing, as opposed to higher level microbiology, is very much rooted in common sense and maintaining high standards of physical awareness - e.g., where will that cask roll off the pallet and on to whose foot; how best to bang in cask tap with a mallet without the afore-mentioned beer fountain; holding a heavy beer-filled hose with left hand and connecting hose nut on to valve thread with right hand; listening to the cooling pumps to check all is in order; etc etc.

Alesh, in his turn, has been discovering the joys of infusion mashing with fully-modified malt (without the typical decoctions and multi-temperature mashes with under-modified czech malt) together with our crazy (in his eyes) temperatures for fermenting the wort (18.5 instead of 8 degrees C) and maturation of one week for ale unlike the two months he's used to.

It's vital in the brewery to have an understanding of the science of brewing, but equally it's essential to have an understanding of how beer works, as a beverage, as a social relaxant and convivial accompaniment as well as how the art of making beer enhances our lives and does its small bit in improving the human condition - in addition to getting the process right!

Having the opportunity to take on a student every year is great for us and them as they can learn more practical brewing and management skills in 2 weeks with us than 2 years of textbook study. And we can learn about the latest trends in music, how an ipod works and which nightclubs to avoid...or not!

Slainte, Ken

Pub Tram!

Here we are in Helsinki, the Jewel of the Baltic, about to go for a tram journey. Not any old tram journey, but a very special tram journey, for this tram, bedecked in the Finnish beer Koff livery, is a pub! Unlike many former trams masquerading as restaurants and bars - the one in Prague's Wenceslas Square springs to mind - this Koff tram actually goes on a circuit of the Helsinki centre. The beer on board was the very tasty Koff pilsner and was a superb accompaniment to the tour of the old city with its achitectural gems. The small tables between the seats have holes cut out in which to keep one's glass steady whilst the tram trundles over the cobbles and points on its journey.

Gippis!

(Slàinte for the non-Finnish speakers)

Passing by one of the Alko off-licences which sell our Blackfriar

In typical Finnish style, the tram was furnished with polished wooden seats and tables with all the metal finishings in beautiful brass. The circular journey took about 45 minutes, plenty of time to sample the liquid gold with sufficient time for ample replenishment...and there is a very clean toilet on board for those who feel the need. I wanted to go around again (obviously to tick off my guide book recommendations of Jugendstil granite edifices), but was countermanded by the Lady Arlene, as a visit to the ceramic studio Arabia awaited us...

Well worth a visit if you are in Helsinki, and it's only one of the many pearls of delight in this truly wonderful city.

The small but perfectly-formed bar.

Slàinte, Ken

2,4,6,8 Let's all Coagulate!

What's all this stuff in my pint? Well it's not yeast this time and it's not even beer yet! The pint glass shows the 'cold break', from the rapidly cooled copper wort sample, dropping slowly as the flocs or little lumps of protein gather together or coagulate and fall to the bottom of the glass.

These proteins precipitate from the brilliantly clear hot wort as it is cooled and if we get a clear cold wort with what we call a 'good cold break' at the bottom of the glass like in the picture above, there is much rejoicing in the brewhouse, for it means that we shall have clarity in the beer. Without a good cold break, that is, one which does not settle out well and remains as a murky, cloudy wort, then there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth as this certainly means clarification issues ahead.

What the cold break tells us is that the wort has been boiled vigorously and strongly and for long enough (60 - 90 minutes) so that the ultra-microscopic protein particles are flung together at their iso-electric point, the pH at which the numbers of positive and negative particles are equal, and stick together to form large flocs - the 'hot break', which separates out leaving crystal clear wort in the copper. If the boil is not vigorous the wort will generally remain turbid - a bad word in a brewery!

However the cold break is a lovely sight to a brewer and is more proof that beer is a protein drink!

Slainte, Ken

Atholl Highlanders charge for a pint!

The Atholl Gathering took place on the last Sunday in May at Blair Castle under glorious sunshine, after the showers and gusty winds had disappeared. The last fully-armed private army in Europe, the Duke of Atholl's very own Atholl Highlanders, were on parade on the Highland Games field with the Pipes and Drums and their two-pounder field gun. The firing of the field gun at 1pm opened the games with a big bang. The annual Atholl Highlanders' Race (above) was great fun with your friendly neighbourhood brewer running as fast as he could to get to the firkin of Inkie Pinkie. I must confess I wasn't in the top quartile, but at least I wasn't in the last either, though I did win the rifle shooting trophy, beaing the gamekeepers and regular shooters! The beer went down rather quickly, we think it was something to do with the double quick tempo of the Atholl Highlanders march being played by Pipe Major...

The Highlanders continued the entertainment with a relay race between the Officers, Pipeband and Rifle Company, a very interesting Foursome Reel by a quartet of Officers, the Sword Dance from a trio of Jocks and finally a Tug o' War between the Band and the Rifle Company. A grand day out for all and washed down nicely with a pint or two of very tasty beer. Hope to see you there next year at Blair Castle on the last weekend in May.

Slàinte, Ken

Here Comes Summer!

To quote the mighty Undertones, a fave band of mine from the late 70's, 'Here comes Summer...' And to make it even better we've been brewing up plenty of our lovely summer session bevvy, the glorious Inkie Pinkie, as seen above in Greyfriars Bar near me in Perth last weekend. Only a dodgy mobile phone snap, but the beer was FAB!

Whistles whetted and feeling the desire for some summer sun, the Lady Arlenka and I headed over to the West Coast for some well deserved blue sky and high winds near Tarbert where those gorgeous Flowers of Scotland, the Bluebells (another fine band) were welcoming in the summer with relish. Perfect time for a pint of Inkie Pinkie? Mmm...

Back in Perth the next day it was time to strip down the boiler ready for its summer inspection by the Fat Controller. If ever you want to know what Thomas the Tank Engine looks like on the inside, look below now...

A big blue box with hundreds of tubes full of water that is boiled by flames (behind the blue section below) to create steam in the upper section, whence it is piped away to wheel-driving cylinders (in Thomas' case) or to steam jackets (in ours) to heat up water in the Hot Liquor Tank or wort in the Brew Kettle. Everything was in fine fettle for the inspection, so once the boiler was put back together the regulator was cranked up to full steam ahead and brewing began again to keep the summer drinkers happy. Toot Toot!

Steam whistling merrily from the very happy boiler with the very happy brewer whistling merrily away inside, very much looking forward to his pint of Inkie Pinkie. Slàinte, Ken

New for old! Our Laboratory Lives!

As you probably know, we have always been very careful in analysing our beer to improve it and to maintain the consistency of the flavours. The picture above shows our old laboratory techniques in yeast vitality and viability. I'm on the right with the lorgnette and sample flask and young Grima, our trainee brewer, is on the left with Richard, who started his brewing career in the lab of a long-gone Edinburgh brewery, in the middle. We are very fortunate to have our new lab, pictured below, with its state of the art equipment, which now has pride of place in the brewery itself, thus clearing space in the kitchen for the toaster and a new kettle.

Slainte, Ken

Blackfriar for Finland - Olut Suomen!

Here's your local brewmaster standing beside our new 60 bbl FV8 bedecked with Sinivalkoinen or the Finnish Flag to mark this brew of Blackfriar destined for our good friends in Finland in a few weeks time.
Gippis & Slàinte
Ken

The brewery's getting bigger!

We are very proud and pleased to announce the commissioning of our new Fermenting Vessel, Big Bertha, which is dwarfing the lovely Lady Arlenka on her Sunday visit. Big Bertha holds 60 barrels, 100 hectolitres or 20,000 bottles. She was a bit troublesome to get in position, with 2 cranes needed and lots of excited brewery folk watching from the viewing platform upstairs.

However she's all ready to brew into with 60 barrels of Blackfriars destined for Alko in Finland! Hurrah!

Slainte, Ken