Month: March 2020

28
Mar
2020
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

As many of you will have seen, this week we took the heartbreaking decision to temporarily close the brewery because of the Coronavirus outbreak. It’s horrible, it really is, for many reasons. However, we’re determined to stay positive and here’s a few things that we’re excited about, looking forward to or thankful for, regardless of what the world’s throwing at us right now.

We have time to ourselves. Running a business alongside other careers and interests is hard. Well, running a business is hard. So now we have some time to genuinely relax, as well as catching up on paperwork and those other bits and pieces we never quite get around to doing. We also have time to dream and plan, meaning we’re really looking forward to when we open again and we can start to put those dreams and plans into action!

We’re hoping to open a delivery and/or takeout service… soon-ish! The main reason we haven’t done this already is licensing – the brewery doesn’t have a permanent premises licence and we rely on temporary event notices for our monthly tap room events. We’ve taken advantage of our little bit of downtime to become possibly the only people to apply for a premises licence in March 2020! We’re guessing it completely confused the council. Anyway, if it all goes well, we should be able to partially reopen in the nearish future – keep your eyes peeled for news.

Our house is probably the tidiest it’s been for years! We had some work done on our house last year and even though it’s nearly a year since it finished, we still have some stuff that’s not been moved back to its normal place. Mrs Beerblefish found the potato peeler in the (converted) loft today – a genuine win, both because we can now peel potatoes safely and because it’s one more item towards the loft being a properly usable space again.

Brett is great in sourdough. We’ve had many brewing-related baking accidents over the years, mostly before the brewery was commercial and James was still homebrewing. We’ll never forget the mince pies that rose or the gingerbread people that looked pregnant because of the amount of yeast floating around in our kitchen. However, we very intentionally added a small amount of brett to our sourdough starter (named Barry) and it gives a wonderful, almost meaty flavour to the bread. Definitely one to try at home!

We’ll be back again next week with some proper beer and/or gin news, but in the meantime, keep yourselves well, wash your hands and REMAIN INDOORS!

Posted by Bethany in Beer & Food, Beerblefish HQ News
21
Mar
2020
Weathering the Storm

Weathering the Storm

Somewhat ironically, today’s blog post was supposed to be about holding parties at the brewery! We’ll be saving that one for another time but this is merely a blip in our blog planning and it will pass.

We’re living in uncertain times all of a sudden, and this week’s closure of pubs, bars, clubs and restaurants has a great impact on many people who work hard to provide quality beers to the general public. The owners and staff of those venues are, of course, at the front line of that impact, but there are many other links in the supply chain that will be feeling the pinch right now, from the breweries to the yeast manufacturers and from the distributors to the farms that rely on spent grain as animal feed.

We think we’re in a reasonably good place overall – our unique business model and social enterprise aims give us a bit of wiggle room to weather this kind of storm. We’re looking at ways to get our beer out there even though the pubs are shut. We’re unlikely to be brewing as much in the near future as we had planned, but we’ve got some stock of our best beers and our Limited Edition Hopped Gin, and we’re hoping to be able to find retail outlets for it very soon.

In the meantime, if you want to help us to keep going (not just financially, but motivationally!), now would be a really good time to buy a tshirt from our online tshirt store – we know that our fulfilment partner, Teemill is looking after its staff at its factory on the Isle of Wight, but many of their processes are automated, so they’re able to keep going when others might not be able to.

We’re really looking forward to what the future holds for the brewery, so keep an eye out here on our blog and on our social media for all the latest on what we’re up to.

Posted by Bethany in Beerblefish HQ News, Merchandise
14
Mar
2020
Spotlight On… Holtwhites Bakery & Deli, Enfield

Spotlight On… Holtwhites Bakery & Deli, Enfield

In the second of our series on our regular stockists, brewery manager Glenn talked to Kate, the co-founder of Holtwhites Bakery & Deli in Enfield to find out about all things bread!

Spotlight On… Bready Beginnings

Kate told us that she can’t remember what her life was like before setting up the bakery with her husband, Richard, in 2011. She said, “Life was slightly crazy because I was running a micro-bakery from home, I had young children, I was working as a social researcher and Richard was a Spanish teacher.”  

Kate and Richard were baking for friends and word got out. They would bake on Friday nights and it got to the point that they’d have 60 people lined up outside their house on the Saturday, waiting to pick up their weekend loaves. Having a deli was part of their original plan, as it made sense to serve tasty cheeses and other delicacies. 

The couple lived just around the corner from the shop they set up in, so they knew the area and the space seemed perfect. As they lived on Holtwhites Hill, it made sense to use a local name for the new venture.

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Spotlight On… Rising to the Challenge

Glenn asked Kate about the challenges she’d faced in setting out: “On opening day, I’d never operated a till!”  On a more serious note, Kate said that being responsible for the livelihood of her staff is a massive responsibility, but there is a good network of support amongst bakers so she and Richard could ask questions when they needed to.  

Spotlight On… the Proof of the Pudding

Kate and Richard pride themselves on only using the best quality ingredients and traditional, “slow” baking methods which means that their products look, smell and taste great naturally. They aim to delight their customers with great customer service and want their shop to be a warm and welcoming haven for people who love good food. 

Kate said she thinks the business is such a great success because, “It’s a labour of love. We really believe in the product.” She thinks that regular customers would describe the bakery as a nice place with a lovely community atmosphere.

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Spotlight On… Going Against the Grain

Of her products, Kate’s favourite bread is the sourdough rye and the 100% wholemeal. Portuguese custard tarts are very popular with the customers. She’s seeing a big interest in Scandinavian baking at the moment, along with a surge in interest in vegan products – Kate thinks that’s down to people converting to veganism (rather than the bakery attracting new customers who are vegan).  Around thirty per cent of the coffees that Holtwhites sell are served with oat milk.

Spotlight On… Liquid Bread

Holtwhites started stocking Beerblefish bottled beers before Christmas to complement their existing line up of craft ales. So far, they’ve had 1820 Porter, 1892 IPA, Infinite Improbability Saison, Amarillo Single Hop and Cashmere Brut IPA.

Kate told Glenn that her customers love Beerblefish beers, saying, “When we first started stocking the beers, one customer noted that he was a fan already.”  Apparently, the Cashmere Brut IPA has also attracted a core following!

Spotlight On… Blooming Romance

Glenn asked Kate if any romance had bloomed in the bakery: “Besides staff… I’m not aware of any customers getting together, although it is a friendly atmosphere in here so it may have happened!”

Posted by Bethany in Beer & Food, Stockists
07
Mar
2020
Beer from the Wood

Beer from the Wood

It’s easy to forget that, in beer terms, stainless steel is a relatively recent innovation. Until the mid-twentieth century, wood was the primary material used for beer casks. In the 1960s, the tide turned in favour of first aluminium and then stainless steel.

Enter the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood (SPBW), which was established in 1963 to try to keep up the traditional use of wooden casks. Through social events and support for breweries, pubs and coopers interested in beer from the wood, their work has helped to stop wooden casks from falling completely by the wayside.

While metal casks undoubtedly have their benefits (among other things, they’re lighter and easier to clean), the brewing industry has caught up in recent years with what the SPBW has been trying to tell us – that something was lost from the creative process when the shift was made away from wood.

A constant supply of new hop varieties, different grain combinations and experimentation with yeasts give brewers an enormous playground in which to innovate, but adding back a couple of extra variables – the type of wood used and the length of time the beer spends in contact with that wood – gives an extra dimension that can be exploited in a different way now that brewers have much more control over their processes as a result of technological advances.

Different types of wood can give different flavour profiles, as can any other drink that’s been aged in the vessel before. It’s important to avoid toxic woods, of course – yew and oleander are particularly nasty – but there are plenty of others to choose from and modern coopers make their casks from a range of trees, including hard maple, for its syrupy notes and white ash, which can give a tantalising hint of campfires and marshmallow. However, it’s very noticeable that there aren’t many firs or pines on the list – some people have reported a hint of turpentine in beers aged in conifer wood, so it’s probably best avoided!

In pride of place in the Beerblefish Brewhouse is our French oak wine hogshead that once contained Beaujolais. The first beer we aged in it was a version of our 1853 ESB that we made for a wedding – some of the lees from the wine were still in the barrel and gave the beer a fantastic round mouthfeel and mellow flavour during the six month aging period. The wood is quite old, so there weren’t the vanillins that one might expect from newer oak.

Since then, we’ve aged a few beers in the wooden barrel, most recently our Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout 2019, the latest in our annual series of imperial stouts. We’ve also borrowed some wooden pins and provided the same beer from wooden and stainless steel barrels so that drinkers can spot the differences.

We’re enjoying our beer from the wood so much that we’re about to invest in our own oak casks in preparation for SPBW’s Woodfest 2020 at the Turk’s Head in Twickenham on 28 to 30 May.

Posted by Bethany in Brewing, Research and Trips