The end is in sight

It’s almost Easter and the brewery isn’t quite ready yet, but another few days work and we’ll be there.

Whilst the builders and engineers are getting the brewery ready, I’m busy ringing pubs and getting customers on board. The area I’m covering is from Sheffield to Nottingham, and across to Lincoln, although Kelham Island Brewery will be able to sell a bit further afield to many of their long established customers. If you live in this area, just mention it to your local’s landlord and tell them they can ring me any time to talk about ordering.

We’ve decided what the first recipes going to be - we will call it ‘First Brew’, it’s a traditional thing. It’ll be a gorgeously quaffable summer pale ale, at 4.3% and totally crammed full of zesty zingy Cascade and Willamette hops. Yum yum.

After that one, what do you fancy next? Another summery pale ale? Or a good session bitter to quench your thirst on a cool spring night? I want to make a British Bitter soon, with English malted barley and whole flower Fuggles and Goldings hops from Kent and Herefordshire. What do you think?

Anyway, more grist to the mill….or soon there will be I hope!

No longer an empty shell

The water is going in today, as I write they're drilling a huge hole in the wall and getting covered in brick dust. The installation engineers have managed to move all the brewery tanks, cask washer, grist case etc into the brewhouse and it's now jam-packed with brewery and installation kit. Much better.

They're going to start piping between the tanks today, we looked at where they're all going so it's starting to come together now. The beer cold store and my office are finished, and the electricians are putting all the lighting and fittings in as we go. Hopefully I'll get a phone number today too which will be good - haven't got a phone yet though.

So it's all coming together and getting close to brewing. Nothing too disastrous has happened yet (touch wood!!) but I am pretty sure it will do soon as it's been far too plain sailing. Eeek!

(Left) This is the uber forklift truck we had to use to get the copper in the door and stood upright! It's a monster, and I owe the farms chaps some beer to say thank you because they went out of their way to spend several hours helping on Monday and Tuesday.

Right then, best I find a chiller unit...