Author: WishboneAde

I get told off if I don’t blog frequently enough so here is some stuff about our Mobile Bar build 😉

Building a mobile bar is something I’ve wanted to do for a good while though we got a kick up the arse from Keighley Worth Valley Railway so we could be one of the brewery bars at Ingrow Station as part of their yearly Beer Festival. We will be in good company with our friends from Old Spot Brewery along with Freedom Brewery, the full beer listings are here.

Building the bar has been fun, we purchased most the parts for the bars from CFBS in Keighley, I had previously bought the scaffolding from www.scaffolding-direct.co.uk and the stainless steel plate was laser cut for us by RMD Fabrications in Silsden, a few of the keg taps came from eBay and a few smaller parts which I already had were from EWL in Keighley too.

I designed the Banner sides for the front bar and got the printed by Fat Cow Signs on at Hawkcliffe corner, so doing our best to keep things local.
We can currently have 6 keg beers and 2 Handpulled beers on the go with this setup, at a later date I will fit a Glass Rinser so we can refresh festival-goers glasses with clean, chilled water before pouring another beer and there is still room on our chiller unit for 3 more kegs should we ever want to expand on what we’ve got.
We obviously need to give this a trial run before the beer festival later in the month, so either Friday 6th or Saturday 14th *Probably both!* we will have an extra few Keg beers on the go in the brewery. Don’t forget on the Friday we also have The Courtyard Dairy from Settle doing their amazing cheeses and Edward St Bakery from Saltaire with all manner of baking in the brewhouse, then on the Saturday we have Casa Espresso from Shipley who will be doing their coffee thing along with our regular foodies The Lemon Tree.

*Disclaimer: Please respect our food guys by not ordering a takeaway or bringing your own food for these sessions, thanks very much.

Motueka, a Faux-Lager recipe 5.2% in Keykeg and Cask. We want this to be supped with that bit of extra carbonation on unfined, unfiltered Keg. The Motueka hops from New Zealand come across and floral and spicy when used in the boil but dry hopping with them adds something different and rather nice. Eventually we will use a proper German Lager or Kólsch yeast on this and maybe our Bruce Aussie Blonde too.

The big brother of Night Star 3.7% is going to get brewed at a more IPA-ish 5.5%, same idea just bigger and more, meet N-Star-2.
Then more into next month we are throwing the Chinook hops of of our original American Pale ‘Bandit’ and swapping it for some Citra… that’ll be a Citra-Bandit then 🙂

On 28th August we silently passed our 2nd Birthday, we should probably be celebrating that with a special brewday or an event or something.
As it happens it was Emma’s Birthday so we were in Scotland on holiday leaving our small skilled team of minions to fend for themselves (Oliver, Dawn & Dave).

Its been an entertaining couple of years and there is always something to think about, we brewed around 47 different beers and about 187 brewdays in that time, that 200th brew is fairly close too so we have Oliver working on a Milk Stout recipe which will almost tie-in with his 1 year anniversary of working with us.

We’d like to thank all our customers for letting us try our ideas out on you, special mentions to The Cap & Collar in Saltaire and The Boathouse in Skipton.

2 years have passed and we still haven’t got any beer in bottle! Sorry about that, its a whole side of the business we have yet to develop. Since the start of this year our kegged beer range has grown, having our little tank for doing small batch keg-conditioned beers is great, we are still working on having a more consistent marketplace to sell them into… if we were bottling already the marketplace for Keg & Cask would have already been much more open as we would have been able to give bottled samples away which would open doors to customers that won’t buy before they try!

We’ll get there eventually!

Divination IPA got brewed for the first time this year and will be available in Cask from Monday, keg-conditioned 30L KeyKegs will be ready about 10 days from now. In some ways I feel the”Core Range” is a thing of the past, we have re-jigged our hop contracts to leave us more open to change for 2018.

We brewed with Motueka hops from New Zealand this week in what I’d like to think of as a Fake-Lager (Working title, Faux-One, yeah it might be a bit of a shit name!) We mashed at quite a cool temperature to help the beer finish with a nice crisp dry edge to it and we will be dry hopping this beer subtly in the FV before casking and kegging.

Our mobile bar is taking shape, though the coming weeks I need to work on the back-bar which will have 6 keg taps on it to compliment the 2 handpulls we have for the mobile front bar.

Cheers 🙂

I think the Title of this post should really be “Brewers, Pubco Distros, and the unspoken problem with beer distribution in the UK”

The Cask Mountain in Pub’s yards and Cellars…

When bought new:
1 Plastic Beer Cask costs between £30-£40 each
1 Metal Beer Cask costs between £55-£70 each

Each of these casks is an investment by the brewery so unless they make it back to the brewery after distribution it is basically a lost investment, lost profit or you move passed lost profit and it turns into minus figures so you are out of pocket on the sale.

A lost cask is instant lost profit and also that cask cannot generate future profit for the brewer!

We deliver our own casks and track where they go so we can get them back and send them back out in this continual cycle, sometime casks disappear from Pubs so you have to think there are a number of scenarios for their disappearance:

• Casks collected by other brewery by mistake
• Casks stolen (Homebrewers, Metal Thieves even other brewers)
• Keg Watch uplift (They then charge you to bring back your property)
• Pubco Distribution teams uplifting casks they don’t own (Even though we periodically check with these big distributors, Carlsberg, Heineken, KNDL, Tradeteam etc etc I think we are mostly just fobbed off)

I’m sure this list could be added to.

Wholesalers & Brewers Wholesaling…

We use Wholesalers and Brewers that we wholesale to who then distribute our casks to their customers, we are then stuck with the same risks of the list above but with the added uncertainty that we no longer know where our casks go to and have to rely on what is basically a Gentleman’s Agreement that they will bring our casks back.

Those brewery-owned Casks, which we send to Wholesalers, remain the property of the brewery and we send those in Good Faith trusting the wholesaler to be diligent and collect them all back in.

We know of one wholesaler who has at least a 40 foot shipping container stuffed full of pallet loads of empty brewers casks that they cannot really be arsed to get back to the brewers, there is no money in taking casks back… only money in selling beer!
Lets say you could get 400 Metal Beer casks in a Shipping container each costing £55 each, thats £22’000 worth of brewers property just leisurely sat there doing nothing for the brewer/owners. Multiply that by 10 wholesalers/brewer-wholesalers and you can see its a massive issue!

Pubs suffer and really struggle with cask-mountains.

If we deliver to a far away pub it sometimes means we can’t get back to that pub in a reasonable timeframe so there will always be the odd 1 or 2 casks that stay out in trade for longer than we want. Thankfully our own list of far-away casks is literally about 2 casks that we have delivered ourselves, a diligent delivery driver helps loads mopping up the empty casks to be filled with more ‘tasty beer’ 😉

Though think of the pubs and landlords stressed out that all the casks that brewers and wholesalers won’t / can’t collect, think of the rental casks (Ecasks) delivered by wholesalers that linger in yards and cellars too. Its not surprising that some bars and pubs say stuff it and call in KegWatch and clear out casks from yards with a broad brush stroke.
The average pub probably has 20 empty casks and some many many more, that could be £1000 per pub-worth of brewers casks… how many Free House pubs are there in the UK? lots, ok, and the rise of the Micropub with little to no storage space is growing! Micropubs & small bars have the hardest time with empty casks and will get the most grief from councils if they leave empties on the street.

The Brewery Trade as a whole need some sort of Wholesaler/Cask/Pub Amnesty.

SIBA, the Society of Interdependent Brewers could possibly help along with Keg Watch and the big-boy distributors.
Mind you, brewers mostly feel that paying KegWatch for their own property back is a form of Blackmail… I guess we should all try to appreciate the logistics, transport and storage that goes into what KegWatch do… though that is not to say that KegWatch don’t always get it right and will uplift a brewers casks that the owning brewer was on their way to collect, this can usually be resolved with a phone call. KegWatch will be called in when a Pub shuts down and clear all the empties off site, mistakes are bound to happen.

Back to the Amnesty!
ALL Pubs and bars, Brewery & Wholesaler’s Yards need clearing out.
A database of brewers casks built.
Brewers given the chance to get their property back.

Even Ecasks (Casks to be used Once and sent into Wholesale Only), ‘Close Brewery Rentals’, could have their own Amnesty of sorts, they could allow brewers to collect empty ecasks and get them filled with beer and back into the Wholesale Trade for a limited time period, this could clear a quarter of some pubs cellars, and be a short term benefit to brewers and a slightly longer term benefit to ‘Close Brewery Rentals’ as they too would start seeing their long-outstanding casks returning to base.

The bit that will smart some brewers eyes! Some brewers take the piss with their use of Ecasks, filling them many times, delivering them to customers directly rather than the instructed way of selling into wholesale only! The amount of Ecasks you see some brewers deliver direct to pubs make you think that they wouldn’t have a business if they can’t actually afford their own casks, so a big Cask Amnesty would help with this.
I guess you could say that it pisses me off seeing other brewers using Ecasks like their own casks when we use them the official way. So suck that up!

The long and short of it…

• Casks = Brewer’s Property.
• Brewers-Wholesaling/Wholesalers distributing our casks = Responsible for their Return? Have some respect for your fellow brewers casks.
• Cask Mountains in Pubs, Wholesalers and Brewers yards = Massive tied up brewers investments that could be making money.
• Probably some naming and shaming of bad Ecask users 😉 After an Amnesty period.Surely its that simple? (probably a mahoosive logistical nightmare to be honest)

All of the above is an industry wide issue, we should all do something about!

• Brewers! Pick up your local brewers casks and TAKE them back to them.
• Wholesalers! Actually uplift ALL empties, with exceptions to casks not being where you sent them.
• Pubs/Bars! Make an Empties List & tell brewers they must collect.
• Homebrewers! Stop stealing brewers investments! Take those casks back.
• Pubco / Distros! Publish an Open List of all Independent Brewers Casks you hold.

*Edit*

One of our brewing friends in West Yorkshire was collecting 3 of theirs from K & L Wakefield today – reckons there must be 4-500 casks from small micros like us just sitting there – with
15-20 more EACH from the slightly larger micros Acorn / Abbeydale / Ossett
and the like, plus more than that from the big regionals.

That’s just 1 K & L yard!

And lets not even think about Kegwatch in Doncaster – 20,000 or more we’re
told – and so many arriving they can’t keep on top of the admin. to know
what they have.

*End*
When you are told this sort of thing you can see how much of a problem the Big Distributors are causing by uplifting casks that don’t belong to them making the Independent Microbrewing sector really suffer due to their cask uplifting policy, I dare say this is the biggest problem for those Microbrewers using the SIBA Beerflex system to sell into tied pubco pubs.

That probably all sounds like a whinging rant but small businesses like ourselves feel it when casks go missing.

Cheers

A little comment on a snippet from this article http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Drinks/Beer/Train-staff-to-improve-craft-beer-sales-urges-Fourpure-head-brewer

So what is it that makes craft beer different to, erm, other beer?

My conclusion:
There is only really Fast Beer and Slow Beer + Amount Ingredients. Craft Beer is therefor ‘Slow Beer’ with an emphasis on the amount and quality of ingredients, how they are used and how long that beer stays in tank.

Craft Beer is Dead, long live Slow Beer!

 

*Edit – Mike may have got there first https://chorltonbrewingcompany.com

As a business we have decided that we don’t want to sell to Wetherspoons or via SIBA into Tied Pubcos, we do sell to Wholesalers by the pallet load as they are the thicker end of the wedge versus McSpoons & Pubcos who wont pay anything like a fair price for beer.
If you consider Wetherspoons a ‘Free House’ it is, but only in so much as so long as you sell your soul for a low margin almost any approved brewer can sell to them, so I feel they shouldn’t be fully classed as real Free House Pubs.

Is the rise of the Micropub going to ever tighten the screws on Tied Pubs? Will the pub-tie eventually just fall apart? If the Pub-Tie system was outlawed when we leave Europe how would the market change?

I’m not even slagging off tied pubs, there are many great tied pubs that we would like to see our beer on the bar of, so my opening statement is somewhat ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’, we do hope that sticking with these beliefs will keep our brand true and undiluted.

If all pubs were free to buy beer from whoever they choose it has be good for local the economy.

And… in other news!
In about 10 days or so our collab with The West Riding Refreshment Rooms in Dewsbury ‘Cellar Dweller’ will be ready in Unfiltered, Unfined and keg-Conditioned along with some casks, 7.5% with lots of Ekuanot & Citra. Double Black IPA or Double India Black Ale as we prefer…

 

Next Saturday 12th we have a special Charity Beer on the bar so the more you drink the more you/we give to Manorlands, our sales girl Dawn has been working her ass off drumming up support and has got loads of great raffle prizes from local businesses lined up. There will be extended opening hours, Band, Food, Raffle so make sure to get down here 🙂 Cheers

 

A couple of points here, Oliver from the Tapsters Promise would like us to explain the difference between types of kegs and how a beer is kegged, then one of our very good customers asked why the price of our bar’s keg beer was different to our handpulled prices.

I’ll have to tackle this in parts, first off the different types of Kegs.

KeyKeg:

• Beer in bag system, the gas you use to serve the beer never comes into contact with the product inside, serving gas collapses the internal bag pushing the beer out.
• If the brewer gets the carbonation level right when filling the beer should stay that way if handled correctly.
• Can be served using compressed air or co2  (Carbon dioxide Gas).

Regular kegs, Dolium, Stainless Steel, Molded Plastic, Ecokeg etc:

• As far as I am aware all these types of kegs require co2 to serve as the gas its self is directly in contact with the beer inside the keg.
• Not a lot to say about this unless I let my opinions start talking, there is more chance of contaminating the beer or gaining or losing carbonation in the pub cellar, if stored and served correctly there are no issues.

Now we need to talk about Carbonation and how it can be applied:

1. Carbonation with external co2 in the fermenting vessel, conditioning tank or bright tank.
2. Carbonation from natural co2 given off during fermentation with a pressure relief valve (Spunding Valve) set to a certain pressure during the later stages of fermentation.
3. Carbonation in keg from adding sugar solution to the beer prior to filling kegs, the kegs are then kept warm for 7 to 10 days while the residual yeast in keg turns the sugar into natural carbon dioxide.
4. Carbonation with external co2 added via the keg-coupler direct to each keg.

The Keg vs Cask price on our bar:

There is a rough rule of thumb, if a cask of beer sells for £80 per 40 Litres then a keg of the same beer will sell for the same £80 for 30 Litres, this is due to the extra cost & time involved in packaging (filling) kegs vs casks, I’ll show two lists so you can compare the way we do things.

Cask Only Packaging:

1. Beer is fermented until the last 1 to 2 degrees of fermentable sugar are left in the beer (this aides cask conditioning).
2. Beer is chilled down in stages, 17c for 24 hours, 11c or 4c for 24hours depending on whether we are to dry hop or not we vary the time cooling takes for whether it is going to be fined or unfined beer. Cooling beer is done via the glycol chiller unit which runs on electric.
3. Cleaning chemicals are used to clean all pipework that touches the beer.
4. All casks are cleaned externally and internally, casks are re-usable.
5. After filling all casks you are left with a dirty fermenting vessel which will require cleaning with caustic cleaning chemicals.

Keg Only Packaging:

1. Repeat steps 1 through 5 above with the extras below.
2. Wait for two gravity readings the same which are 24 hours apart so you can ensure a stable Terminal Gravity (Negligible fermenation activity, there beer does not ferment further).
3. Cool the beer further, slightly cooler and for a longer time, to ensure the appropriate clarity of beer is ready for packaging. (Steps 2 & 3 can tie up a fermentation vessel for up-to 5 extra days)
4. Clean the tank and all pipework you are going to use to keg the beer from, again caustic cleaning chemicals are used.
5. Buy carbon dioxide or sugar for priming, which is used to carbonate the beer.
6. Buy the One-Trip kegs and snap on dust caps.
7. Fill the kegs, each one is 30 Litres and take about double the amount of time it takes to fill a 40 Litre Cask.
8. After filling all your kegs you are left with a dirty kegging tank which must, yet again, be cleaned with caustic cleaning chemicals.
9. *Options* If the beer was directly carbonated with co2 the beer is ready for sale when the brewer feels it is right.
10. *Options* If the beer was primed with sugar the kegs must been kept warm for 7 to 10 days while the beer naturally carbonates its self, we do this in our purpose built Warm-room using an electric heater to keep a temperature of between 20c-24c.
11. Kegs are then cooled in our coldstore for a minimum of 24 hours before being available for sale.
12. Sometimes extra branding, ‘Point of Sale’, Keg Badges will need to be purchased, we try to minimise this and use our regular pumpclips where we can though a properly made Keg Badge finishes the job off more professionally.

So that completes the comparison of Casked & Kegged beers with their associated production procedures.
Cask = 5 steps
Keg = 16 steps
When we price a keg beer for our bar we should not sell ourselves short as this simply wouldn’t be fair on us, our aim for next year is to ensure we carry this fair approach to our brewery-tap-served cask beers.

I hope that helps open drinkers eyes to why Keg beer can cost more than cask, Cask prices have been punished severely by the likes of Wetherspoons over many years and it is a growing opinion that Cask beer should be valued higher which would balance this entire Cask vs Keg pricing thing 😉

Talking of Keg beer, our naturally keg-conditioned Double IPA ‘Lupulonimbus’ 7.5% will be available in about a week after its warm conditioning.

 

Well Koru NZ Blonde just kept flowing at yesterdays Brewery Tap! You lot managed to sup your way through 2 full casks of the stuff, and you sapped just about all the casks we had on!

Marvin our American Red was also very well received, I think we may add a little more to the dry hopping for the next brew.

Cheers to all who came and good to have the CAMRA Holiday group for a brewery tour.

New brews this week!

1776 an American Hopped Blonde 3.8%, part of our ‘Around the World Blondes’ working up to having a ‘Blonde Fest’ in the Brewery Tap. And with July the 4th just around the corner you can celebrate Independence day with 1776.
Marvin an American hopped Red Ale 4.2% based around the Malt bill from Whero but a little darker with Centennial & Ahtanum. Free Pint to the first Brewery Tap customer to tell us why its called Marvin 😉
Lupulonimbus Double IPA 7.5% Unfined and Hazy, some German Magnum in at the start of the boil then lots of Cascade at the end followed by two dry hopping stages using Cascade & Chinook to the tune of 12.5g/Litre in the FV. This beer will mostly be heading into 30L Keykegs with just a few casks.