Goodbye Blogspot!

Well its with great joy and sadness i close this blog. I am moving the blog for its current location in Blogspot to the new BlackBar website. Which you can find at www.BlackBar.co.uk. So thank you for following me here but i'll be switching my blogging to the new website as of today. So please come have a look around and thank you of the support so far.
Cheers JK

Working with family...

Any one will understand that working with family is both great and crazy but ......

well the photo will say the rest. 

Cheers JK

Gyles 0004 and 0005

Well these are the next two batches out
Gyle 0004 is BlackBar Bitter 3.4%
Gyle 0005 is Black Economy 4.6%
they are going out to pubs over the next few days and will be on as of the weekend i would expect.
If you would like to know more watch the BlackBar website www.blackbar.co.uk, yes i have a website.
Also if there is anyone out there wondering what to do next Monday the 6th February, you will find me in brewer mode in the Cambridge Blue on Gwydir street in Cambridge for Jethro and Terris' evening celebrating St Amand's Day, patron saint of brewers. I believe there will be other brewers in residence that night as well. So why not come down for a chat about beer and maybe the odd awkward question.
look forward to seeing you there
Cheer JK
PS i'll be the one in the black flat cap

Dray Bike update

Evening all i have been busy delivering beer and was hoping the dray bike would be doing it all but due to a large piece of flint cutting into the trailers tyre today i had to deliver the last two firkins from the Bitter gyle 0003 by van. Very disappointing. But you get flats now and again so the trailer and bike will be back to delivering asap.
But for those that haven't seen the dray bike here is a picture of me with the first firkin delivered i did a week or so ago for the Cambridge Winter Ale Festival (WAF) and a picture of the dray bike fully loaded with 2 firkins doing a delivery run earlier this week into cambridge city centre.

Well the idea works and keeps be busy. So next time you see me out on the road say hi 

Cheers JK

What a start....

As i have been away from the computer for a bit i apologise but it has been a hell of a week. Its all about the first release. As i may have mentioned before the first beer i released was the Bitter. A 3.4% brown bitter. It was a massive success at the Cambridge CAMRA Winter Ale Festival. With the firkin being emptied by friday lunchtime session. So a big thank you to all of you that tired it.
I'm now even happier as i have a full order book and will be releasing the beer to local drinking holes in the next few days.  I will work with those establishments to let you know when and where it is on. Till then here is a little link to a report from the WAF in the local newspaper. Just for those that ask (Mum and Dad) no i don't know who James Barker is. James if you do read this come say hi at some point.
Well today i have just finished brewing gyle 0004 a bitter which will go on sale in a week or so. Tomorrow i'll be brewing another beer. More information to follow once i get it brewed and its all ready to go.
Cheers for now JK

Out of the gate!

Last night was amazing, the first public release of a BlackBar beer was made. The beer that made this massive leap into the public eye was BlackBar Bitter Gyle 0003. I was very happy to see this and even more happy that it was beautifully bright and had a good bit of head forming even from a straight from cask pour. It is a dark brown bitter with a rich malt flavours. With a dry and bitter finish. I hope that you can all find this beer either at the beer festival or at the local pubs it will shortly be available in. I'll inform you of the rest as soon as i know more.
Cheers JK

off line for a while....

Hi all,
 going to be off line for a while busy with brews and beer festivals. More info to follow thursday or friday. But for now here are some photos of the brewery in working order by my mate Rich.

If you want to see more of Richards work his website is www.rwalkerphotography.co.uk

cheers for now JK

Finally!

It's 9:15 pm i'm at the brewery writing this up and the only thing i have to say is best said in a picture.....

I know its only 6.5 firkins but its a start. More info to follow to those that have asked around the 20th January. To the rest of you time to start keeping and eye out.....
Cheers JK

I though i was distracting you...

...alas i wasn't. I am actually awaiting for the completion of the below formula....

V = d2 (S - S1) g

18µ

where:
V = the velocity of precipitation
d = the floc diameter
S = the floc density
S1 = the beer density
g = gravitational constant
µ = the beer viscosity coefficien

so as you can see some days i do some really fun stuff. Right on to tax chat with HMRC.

Cheers all JK

Just to keep you distracted

I know you all want to have a pint of the first BlackBar Brewery ale. But I'm afraid that's going to be a little while off yet. I'll put up the info for the release brew when i know where and when its going till then. Here is a little bit of a rant about whats been happening.
Well there was this event known by most as christmas i prefer the Mid Winter Festival (MWF) but thats me being my awkward self. In my local village we like to make sure that the MWF meal won't sit as a spare tyre for the coming year so we have what is known as the Barrel race.  Basically a bunch of locals like to close of the main road and have a race. To make things a little more fun we make every one push some barrels.

as i'm sure you can imagine there is a lot of laughs, a few crashes and a couple of pints after wards, not surprising you get that many adults together rolling barrels down a closed main road in a small cambridgeshire village.

Next up is the fact i seem to have got myself noticed, BlackBar is listed on the quaffale site. Well I'll get on to them to inform them that there is no space between black and bar in BlackBar. Then i'm going to keep quite and getting on with brewing. I'll let the rest of the information regarding website, launch dates etc etc as soon as i have them till then.

Cheers JK

ps: my feet are cold and i need to get out and do a lot more riding this year. Look out for future blogs on riding and bikes once i have got a few brews done.

Blimey another week gone.

Well it has a been a very interesting week. I brewed the first two batches of beer, all went well, or so i thought. The extract from the mash tun was fine the boil looked good and the fermentation was crazy fast but worked. Then i put the brews on cool and started the fining tests. All went wrong at this point. I had beer that was the correct gravity and colour and flavour with the major problem of it wasn't clearing. Thus i had a problem haze. Of course my mind went mad with what could be the problem. I thought water ion issues, malt problems, malt in kettle issues, cooling problems and more. It took a few days of mad thinking before i decided to contact my old friend Mattias of compass brewery. Mattias was with me at university in Edinburgh and has been a great sounding board since i started this project. (he isn't alone in that job but more about the others another time). I send Mattias a text asking if he could answer my problem. I got a phone call later that afternoon from Mattias asking some more questions. It all ended up with me having made a little mistake. This little mistake was not checking for a good hot break. I would explain the finer details, but that would take to long. The basic answer was i had made a rookie mistake and i should do some reading. (these aren't Mattias words he is far to nicer guy to tell me that). So after a little reading around i had learnt some more that i had forgotten from university and yesterday set about brewing batch 0003. Having increased the boil length and checked many many times for the signs of a good break i cast the brew into the FV and this morning i am happy to say that the brew is fermenting.
I'll leave you with the above info and no more as i don't want to jinx myself now. (to GU i tried to get it right first time but alas i failed, got to live and learn)
Will update you on the out come when i know more........
Cheers JK

Now its time to wait.

Sorry people not much to say as i'm awaiting the fermentations to finish.
More info the follow as soon as i can
Cheers JK

OK so I start 2012 as we mean to go on......

In the BREWERY!                  

Here is the first brew sheet of BlackBar yes it shows a few hops but you'll need more than that to reproduce it. Your welcome to try by the way if you wish. Always nice to see different versions of the same recipe.

 this is the second brew at BlackBar under way. Starting 2012 as i said in the brewery and the way i hope to spend this year. In the brewery working and making beer for you beer lovers out there.

Next up we have the spent grain which is off to one of the local small hold pig keepers. So feed the pigs up. Hate waste so the malt will go to small holders and farmers as needed. But if any one has a large compost heap that would benefit from some hops i would be very grateful to know. Then below we have the fermentation of the first brew 0001 on its way to becoming beer. Right back to it i have to finish brew 0002.
Cheers JK