Temperature in the brew hall today is around 30 degrees and I keep finding excuses to go into our lovely new cold room. It's delicious in there, surrounded by all those gleaming freshly-racked casks of beer, and I'm thinking of moving in for the forseeable.
Deliveries in this weather are a bit of a headache - not only is it really steamy in the Big White Van, but there is the added frisson caused by the odd exoploding cask in the back. We're a lot better this year as we can set off with our beer really really cold, which makes it even more of a shame to hand it over to the one or two landlords we supply who haven't grasped the nettle as far as cellar cooling is concerned. There are even two who keep their beer outside, one a well-known and otherwise highly respected chap, and we have just declined to supply him for the remainder of the heatwave. There's nothing worse than driving away knowing that the next day or so will being a cry for help "It was only outside for half an hour or so, I just don't know what happened..."
Talking to Sue at Abbeydale the other day I discovered that some of her clients are well known for this practice, one in particular having earned the nickname 'BBB' for Beer-Boiling Bastard. I think he has relatives in the trade here in Cumbria ...
I expect that some beer bloggers would go on at this point about the optimum temperatures for storing beer, both at rack and in cellars. But I just haven't the heart, as long as I can rely on a landlord to keep the beer under 12 degrees I'm happy. It won't be long before I am joining them in complaining about chill hazes ...
And here's a pic of our latest additions, one of our swallow brood which has fledged this afternoon. They are lined up on the brewery door at the moment, egging each other on to fly just that little bit further, to push the envelope. They have to get ready for the big trek to South Africa later this year, and it wouldn't do to be unfit and unprepared, would it? There's a moral in there somewhere.
