Its a minefield!
Gyle #484 is Pixie Juice in Cans.

I’m struggling with the results we have been getting for the Canned Gyle #484 of Pixie Juice, please have a look down the table below I am at a loss to understand and #484 seems to be an anomaly, especially so when you compare it to Gyle #399 that had No Brewers Clarex (BC).
Gyle #486 gave us confidence that we had the correct amount of BC so the brew was scaled for Canning volume for #484, all subsequent brews have BC.
Results have got worse for this recent re-test yet they were 16ppm about 3 weeks prior, meaning a worst case scenario with the test inaccuracy it would be 22ppm which is mega close to the legal limit of 20ppm. (Current test inaccuracy is +/- 38.11%)

So it feels like I’m just dishing out £100-notes for the fun of it with the latest result being worse than the initial tank sample, it seems an impossibility when as our previous conversation with the lab told me that the BC keeps working and continues to remove gluten.

In all honesty even with Gyle # 497 passing the test with flying colours it makes me wonder if we sent a further sample would it still pass the test?!

Gluten Free Tests – using Synlab, we have previous results which aren’t listed from Surebrew that always passed the 20ppm test.

So moving forward with a slight recipe tweak and 3g/hL we assume this belt and braces approach will see us get results in the <10 ppm area consistently.

What we may have to do is relabel all 2064 Cans before we can release them!

With a little bit of time on my hands I thought I’d share our experience of an Intellectual Property (IP) encounter we had, this means things that may be in conflict with a Trade Mark. Companies Trade Mark (TM) their goods to stop other people copying them, which is pretty fair.

You will no doubt know a few cases that have been prominent in the media and the most recent would be Boss Brewing and their spat with Hugo Boss where comedian Joe Lycett actually changed his name to Hugo Boss in support of the Microbrewery to highlight the stupidity of it all.

Large companies and global brands, with their associated wealth, trademark many product names in many categories and use a blanket cover approach so they tie up their product name so even if a company never make a Beer called ‘Red Bull’ they want to stop any other companies from being able to call a beer anything like Red Dull, Bed Bull, Red Well, Ded Bull etc etc.

Most brewers just think of a beer name and slap it on the Pumpclip, though these days each name we put on a Pumpclip is run through the Trade Mark Office search to check for any pre-existing conflicts, we can also Google to check for beer products already on the market and see if other brewers are using the name in places like Untappd.

Come to think of it our very first instance of this effecting our company is when I used the name of a well known portable toilet provider to describe a portable loo on our Blog, we were asked by the company to change the name as it wasn’t their brand of Dr. Who-style toilet!
Another was when we were going to name a beer Flat Cap for the Cap & Collar’s Birthday beer once too, if you’ve done some drinking in the Cap & Collar you’ll know the Flat Cap connection, though there is another brewer over in Lancashire that phoned and didn’t like us using that name even though they didn’t have a TM on it we picked another name.

I’ve had an instance where we thought of a beer name, spotted it looked *but wasn’t* the same as another brewer’s beer, I thought I’d be polite and ask because brewers are all nice folk and there wouldn’t be any conflict. Sadly that brewer did not turn out to be the polite conversation I had assumed it would be, quite odd. Literally 1 letter difference in a name can be felt as a conflict of interests if the rest of the name looks like someone’s TM even if the letters are all in a different order and the meaning is totally different.

All this brings me on to the main event.

We had brewed a beer a couple of times, named after an Austrian physicist (First name) Christian, who described a change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source in 1842. Now I wouldn’t normally think that something from science which I very much think of as Public Domain would indeed have a TM attached to it. If you want to, you can recreate this effect at home or in your garden with a length of hose pipe with a mouth piece attached to it, make a Trumpet sound by blowing down the hose pipe and swing the other end of the hose around in circles and you can hear for yourselves. Much fun as a kid making a massively loud Elephant trumpet noise in the back garden 😉 A Cyclic-Elephant.

I digress, anyway…..
So this beer name we chose had been picked up by an IP Law company, I assume these companies are the sort that are continually searching Google for names that may be in conflict with their client’s interests (That’s ‘Interests’ meaning TM’s that the client has paid for)
You could say ‘Money for Old Rope’ at this point and for the most part that’s about right.
The first we knew was a letter arriving with some very strong wording about IP law regarding our choice of beer name. Next a Phone call from the IP Law firm which added a little nuance to what has been in the written letter, we also had email of the same, more email an phone calls went on and the phone calls always included extra things that weren’t in writing and looking back I would consider these to be bullying tactics from the IP law firm that they knew they couldn’t put in writing. *Refer back to the top of the page and We always do our TM searches now*

We did our internet searching to try and find this IP Law firm’s client’s business and here’s what we found about that client’s brewery name and beer names:

• Non-trading entity
• No products in the market
• A minimal and very recently created social media presence
• No brewery premises
• Multiple companies house name changes stretching back a few years
• Directors with multiple interests that stretch back to other people and an eventual brewery that traded a lot of years back
• A bunch of Trademarks for products that aren’t being made

With all that in mind you would think there wouldn’t be any conflict, and if a brewer hadn’t done an initial TM search but had Google Searched for any product in the market place they wouldn’t have found a conflict. The IP law firm wanted us to sign a document, we took advice and amended the document before signing it as it was far from being fair to the situation. This was accepted by the law firm and no action was taken.

To be very honest after we did our research it all felt like a massive scam to try and get money out of us. So I hope this serves as a cautionary tale and useful information for brewers when they name their beers. As this was not a fun experience and strayed about as far away as I could imagine from our feeling that brewers were all helpful, nice folks and “beer people are good people”. Some businesses are arse holes with horrible IP law firms.

Never speak on the Phone to IP law firms, refer then to email. Everything in writing.

We have added back 10 litre bag-in-box and 5 litre Minikegs along with our new Can stock, Glassware and T-shirts. Use ‘shoplaunch5’ for 5% off all orders during October. We can post out beer UK-wide via UPS, there is a local delivery option for delivery within 10 miles of Keighley, also you can Click & Collect from us Monday to Thursday.

Click here for the Shop!

I thought I should update you all on our working times…. We can’t always be on site, if you require beer then your best bet is to email info@wishbonebrewery.co.uk

Me ‘Adrian’ works 2-3 days each week, normally in all day Tuesday, other days I am out delivering. I would normally work a full 5 days + weekend checks.

Emma is Furloughed and only doing Director stuff, VAT, Beer Duty etc

Paul is in all day Monday doing sales stuff only, no deliveries, is Furloughed for the other 3 days (worked around our brewing schedule) he would normally work. Though on holiday for 2 weeks as of now so I’ll be in the next two Mondays.

Oliver is in the building 2-3 days each week right now for Brewing and Racking, and furloughed for the remaining time of his regular 5 day week.

You’ll appreciate that if we have no work to do then there is no point coming into work, turning the lights on, starting the computers up and just sitting scrolling through social media for 8 hours! So please do check we are around before heading to the brewery and be aware we are doing our best to keep to Social Distancing guidelines.

Cheers 🙂

Hi Guys,

Yep, we would like to be serving you all pints in the brewery but for a number of reasons we don’t think now is the right time for us.

Some of us have elderly parents and you’ll understand that we don’t want to inadvertently kill them by passing on Coronavirus.
We don’t want either our bar staff or brewery staff to feel uncomfortable in their workplace during or following a bar day.

When we only open 1-2 days each month then the costs of adding safety measures might outweigh the benefits of opening the bar.

We’ll keep you updated and let you know when we feel its the right time to put measures in place and open up the brewery bar again.

Cheers

🙂

We never stopped trading but we’ve only brewed twice since Lockdown started, the brews that were planned and beers that needed putting into Cask or keg around the time of lockdown were indeed put into Cask and Keg.

Different breweries work in different ways with regards to Best Before Dates:
For a Brewery a Best Before Date (BBD) is a date that breweries are required to add to their products unless they are above 10% ABV. It’s up to the individual Brewery to decide how long they should put on their BBD.

• Some breweries start their BBD from the time the beer goes into Cask, Keg etc
• Some breweries start their BBD from the time the beer goes into Cask, Keg etc, but if it doesn’t leave the building in time before the date expires then the brewery re-labels the beer and sends it out with an extended date.
• Some breweries start their BBD from the time the beer leaves the building and goes out to trade.
• Some breweries start their BBD from the time the beer goes into Cask, Keg etc and I would guess a very few breweries would ditch the beer and not sell it.
• Some breweries start their BBD from the time the beer goes into Cask, Keg etc and tell you the date that the beer was filled and the BBD date reflects the amount of time that the brewer thinks the beer will be at peak-condition and exactly how they prefer it.

So all of the above can range from a couple of weeks to a couple of years, or more depending on the style and what container the beer is in.

Prerequisites: 

*The containers the beer is put in must be spotlessly clean and sanitised.
The beer must have been produced in a way that it is free from any contaminants and beer spoilage organisms.
The beer must be cold stored at an appropriate temperature.

Confidence:

So if we brewers cover all bases and have confidence in our process and procedure I don’t see any reason why the beer we put in package (Casks, Kegs, Bottles, Cans) can’t endure an extended period of maturation and still come out of that package in a lovely drinkable condition.

I guess we are lucky in some ways, lockdown has allowed us here at Wishbone to regularly taste our packaged beers over the last 3 months because we have been turning Casks into Boxes and Minikegs, this does bring a level of confidence that all our process and procedure have paid off and our beers are tasting really rather good. Yet you could, if you wished to, consider them to be out-of-date 😉

Sensibilities:

BBD can be meaningless.
BBD can be used by brewers to make a Pub use their beer sooner.
BBD could be extended at any time should a brewer see fit and have confidence that the beer will not suffer for that extension.
BBD can be ignored by Landlords and served passed their BBD at the Landlord’s discretion.

*There must be nearly 100% of small independent brewers use Chlorinated Caustic or Caustic cleaning chemicals to do Hot-clean their Casks and Kegs. Though some bigger breweries use hot water and steam only, I would speculate that this large-scale practice must reduce the shelf-life of the beer inside and I have seen the difference between Package-Dates and Best Before Date on a Cask well within the month (Those beers would be in and out of that cask within 2 weeks) and I’ve been told by a Brewery Consultant that small brewers need to be better at cleaning because the beer stays in cask longer.
I suppose you can extrapolate from that, the bigger the brewer (and I do mean really big) the less confident they will be of the longevity of their beer in Cask and if they are used to a 2 week turn-around then a 4 /6 /8 week turnaround may see the beer within being tainted. (Beer Stone, Staining, Contamination, beer spoilage organisms)

I’m putting today’s email on here for all to see, lets face it not everyone is checking email so here’s the it is in all its honesty…

Hello all,
I’ll kick this off by saying, ONLY email INFO@WISHBONEBREWERY.CO.UK we can pick this up from anywhere and it make answering any questions a load easier and you’ll actually get a prompt response.

Little by little we seem to be seeing an increase in Trade orders, some of you are changing the way you do business and plodding on in a relatively positive manner, which is great to see. This ties in with some of our Home Delivery sales slowing down. The Furlough-Honeymoon period may be coming to an end and people feel less like they are on holiday!!
We are still just me (Adrian) working and so far its covering our bills and also I’m managing to take my minimal wage from it.
While we are ignoring paying our Business Rates we are managing to tick over, though at present we are no where near covering the 3 other staff wages. This is something we are working on with booking Canning slots for getting our beers into small pack.

We appreciate any support you can give us and you’ll find our stock list PDF attached (First come first served basis)

A new brew of Unfunk Citra Amarillo 2-hop Combo IPA 5.5% went into Cask last week and I brewed a fresh batch of Tiller Pin 4.2% yesterday which will be back in cask stock in a couple of weeks.

Our Firkin stock can be turned into Bag-in-Box stock and also certain beers into Minikegs – http://www.wishbonebrewery.co.uk/beer/beer-for-social-distancing/

We have a total of about £6k in Unpaid invoices mostly from before lockdown, if this email reaches you then please do talk to us.

Cheers

*Just to clarify the “£6k in Unpaid invoices” thats Money owed to us which it would be great to get in.

Phasers to Stun

As a company and personally we want to be in a society where there is tolerance towards the whole human race.

We’ve been thinking about writing a statement and talked it over and you can think of this like Voting in a General Election, if you don’t vote you don’t have a chance changing the way our little island is run and the values that we should all try to live up to, no one is perfect but we should all try. If we don’t put out a statement about intolerance we are simply not voting, not helping change, and not benefiting our communities or our future generations.

We must act on intolerance and imbalance where we find it in Race, Religion and Sexuality.

We respect and embrace all Races, Religions and Sexualities. We are all of the same Human Race and we’ll only make it a better world if we work together.

The ‘Phasers to Stun’ title, Star Trek has quite a Utopian ethos, there may be battles and not everyone gets on, but the overriding theme stays the same ‘we must try hard to be better than those which have gone before for the benefit of all’.

We’re still here!
Here is a picture of the new normal!

Its been a while since the last blog post, we’ll also be emailing a version of this out to our trade customers too. Soz, this may be a bit of a long read!

A few things really…

How are you all, we hope all our customers (and their drinkers) are coping with the situation we find ourselves in? There is nothing normal about any of this Coronavirus / Covid19.

If we haven’t told you already, if you have FULL, Untapped casks of our beer and don’t want the stress of having them in your cellar then we’ll have them back and give you a credit to spend on new beer when Pubs can officially open and we can get back to doing what we all do.

We have (When I say ‘we’ I mean Me!) been busy 2-3 days each week filling 10L boxes to order from our Cask stock and then out doing Home and Trade deliveries. Its a weird life right now, part ticking over, part enjoying the holiday, part planning for the future, and part wondering what-the-heck!

We still have lots of good Cask and Keykeg in stock so if you are in a position to sell Cask or Keg beer then do drop us an email to info@wishbonebrewery.co.uk and we will shoot you over a basic stock and price list. We can split full 9’s into Pins or boxes if you need us to, or grab some 10L boxes to punt onto your drinkers, email us for Trade prices.

You might be thinking about clearing your cellar out, and need empties uplifting, we’d like our empties back too and if we can tie-in the uplift of empty casks with another trade delivery we would love to. I’ve been trying to figure out how we can do this without simply spending a load of money on fuel for the van driving around a load of places that have our empties but sadly the doors are shut and everyone is furloughed. I’m definitely open to having a conversation about how we can clear those empties out, so yeah, do get in touch via email and maybe we can meet for a socially distanced exchange.

We look to have had a relatively stable 6-7 weeks, staff furloughed, minimal fixed outgoing costs and none of the usual monthly ingredient costs or all that expensive electric we boil the copper with, we are still going to need your support over the coming months so please keep buying those boxes of beer. All our invoices are paid /will be paid if not yet due, we hope our remaining customers can pay their outstanding invoices soon, please talk to us about this via email it would be great to hear from you and understand your situations.

I personally think the remainder of this year is going to be a write-off for Pubs so we all have to make the best of it to come out of this with strong businesses, its probably not going to be easy to be honest.
But its good to look to the future and we have to plan for the better times or a new normal maybe….

Cans, Canning, Tinnies (but this time 440ml)!

This week I have ordered the ingredients to brew Dassler Helles Lager4.2% and our Gluten Free pale Greenflute 5%, as some of you will be aware Greenflute & Pixie Juice are the same recipe, though it turns out that you like the branding and name of Pixie Juice better and it sells better as Pixie Juice too!
So with that in mind we will be booking a canning slot at the contract canning place and sending 1000L of Dassler and 1000L of Pixie Juice away to be carbed up and put into 440ml cans. We’ll have to give our website a proper online shop page nearer the time too. Don’t get too excited yet though, the ingredients arrive next Tuesday and I won’t have time to brew until the week after so I’ll be brewing Dassler around 26th May, then the lager will be in tank for approx 5 weeks before heading out to the Canners. I’ll be brewing Pixie Juice in time so it can be sent away for Canning at the same time as Dassler, ensuring we pass the Lab analysis for the Gluten Free test so we can properly brand the cans as Gluten Free.

Thats about it, best of luck to everyone we sell beer to and those that we don’t. See you on the other side, erm keep doing that great Social Distancing, Stay at home, *&%$ Boris, check up on your friends, if someone is struggling help them, be excellent to each other, if it smells like poo it probably is… Wash your hands for 20 seconds 😉

Thanks for your continued support xxx