In praise of... J.D. Wetherspoon and the Kirky Puffer

Wetherspoon pubs - good thing or bad thing?  Over the years I've heard  many people take one side or the other on this point, and I'm sure that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle (as it so often does!)  However, for the purposes of this weekend's procrastination exercise, J.D. Wetherspoon seemed like an ideal topic.  Although let's be honest - writing about beer always seems more tempting than writing an essay about partnership working in the public sector for University...

My first experience of a Wetherspoon pub came when I visited my brother when he was studying in Salford many years ago.  We headed into Manchester for a bite to eat and a drink, and went into The Moon Under Water on Deansgate.  If you've never been, it's a converted cinema and I've been told that it is (or at least was) the largest pub in the UK.  I remember being impressed; a better range of beers than your average city centre pub, pub grub that was decent if not spectacular, and a sympathetically converted building which seemed that it had been decorated to try to keep the cinematic history of the building alive.

Shortly thereafter I began to head into the Counting House on George Square in Glasgow now and again, and found it to be much the same - I still like the decorative touches they've used to reflect the building's previous use as a bank.  Then in 2002 I moved to Kirkintilloch, and not long afterwards the Kirky Puffer opened just 5 minutes walk from my flat.  Again, I was impressed with the care they'd taken about converting the building; it used to be the police station in the town, and it's located right on the canal - both of these pieces of history are reflected in the decoration.  They even used the old cell doors as features which is a touch I've always liked!

It quickly became our regular - many a weekday evening we've dropped in for a bite to eat, usually accompanied by one of the variety of guest ales they tend to have on tap.  It's always been clean, with friendly staff, decent food and a better selection of beer than any other pub in the town.  I've always felt that they've tried to promote real ale too - with usually two or three guest ales on tap, beer festivals offering a variety of new things to try, and occasional talks/tasting sessions from a variety of breweries.

Could it be improved?  Sure, there's always room for improvement - in particular I'd like to see a wider range of bottled beer rather than the usual range of boring continental lagers.  But they certainly make more effort than most other pubs, and I think that deserves a bit of credit.

So let's raise a glass to J.D. Wetherspoon in general, and the Kirky Puffer in particular - preservers of notable buildings, providers of decent pub grub, and purveyors of a good range of real ales.

Starting the brew!

The kit

So, who knows how to brew beer at home?  Not me, that's for sure.  Still, we gave it a shot on Monday this week and here's how we went about it!

Firstly, it's worth mentioning what we used.  As I may have mentioned before, my dad used to brew at home many years ago, always using kits containing liquid malt extract which I remember being a thick, gloopy mixture which would then be diluted in water.

This time round he did some reading and thought it would be worth trying a dry kit which seems to be powdered malt extract.  Apparently it makes for a more flavoursome beer - we'll see in a while, I guess!  Anyhoo, the beer of choice this time is a Hambleton Bard 'Old English' kit.  Next time round I think we may try brewing straight from the malt grains but it involves a lot more work so this seemed like a good way to give it a try in the first instance.

Nice and clean!

So step one - get everything clean and sterilised.  We used VWD steriliser, and thoroughly cleaned and rinsed every piece of equipment we were going to use - fermentation bin, hose, funnel, spoon, thermometer, hydrometer and anything else that might come into contact with the mixture.

That being done, we added the dry malt extract to the bin along with 3kg of sugar.  We bought special brewing sugar for this purpose; forgive my lack of knowledge, but it's apparently dextrose (or glucose) rather than sucrose which is supposed to be easier for the yeast to break down.  Seems it's meant to make the fermentation shorter and the beer tastier, so who am I to argue!

In goes the water

Next we added a couple of kettles of water just off the boil and stirred, stirred, stirred and then stirred some more to try to get all of the malt extract and sugar dissolved.  Let me tell you, that took a LOT of stirring!  Thankfully we got there in the end.

With all the malt and sugar in solution, it was time to top up with cold water.  Thankfully we'd had the foresight to procure a funnel and a length of hose so this wasn't too onerous a task!  Filling a 25 litre bin by hand with a jug would have been a bit of a slow job...

A sprinkling of yeast...

We wanted to make sure that the solution ended up at around 25 degrees for the yeast to do its stuff, so as the mixture in the fermentation bin approached capacity we checked the temperature and ended up adding a bit more hot water to keep the temperature up.

So let's review: we have water, sugar, and malt - only two ingredients to go.  Firstly, some hop extract - as with the malt, we fully intend to try boiling up our own hops in future but for a first attempt we just used the extract which came with the kit.  Finally, a sachet of yeast was added and we gave the mixture (I guess I can legitimately call it wort at this stage) a good vigorous stir to try to get some oxygen into the wort to help the fermentation.

What weird science is this?!

At this point we could have happily put the lid and heater on and left it to get on with the fermentation.  However, my dad had found his old brewing hydrometer so we took a measurement of the specific gravity of the wort.  Now, my school chemistry/biology is long behind me so please forgive the layman's explanation for this - if you taking a measurement of the specific gravity (similar to density, I think) of the wort at the start of the fermentation process and then another measurement at the end of the fermentation process you can use the difference between the readings to work out the alcohol content of your beer.  There was also a handy ready-reckoner in the hydrometer instructions and using that we reckon that we'll end up with a nice strong 5.8% bitter.  Lovely!

Let the fermentation begin!

And that, as they say, is that - we put the lid on the bin, leaving the immersion heater dangling in the wort to keep it up to temperature, and popped it through out of the way to get on with the fermentation.

In the few days since we've checked on progress a couple of times, and the fermentation has progressed nicely.  Yesterday the specific gravity was 1.010; we can barrel it once it reaches 1.006, which we reckon will be by tomorrow.

Can't wait!

Fermentation in progress...

Took this snap of the homebrew last night - it's fermenting away nicely and on track for barreling at the weekend.

I'll post a longer report on the brewing process at the weekend, but it certainly seems that things are going well so far!

New Adventures in Home-Brew

Today's the big day - time to get my first homebrew off the ground! After cleaning out and sterilising my dad's old equipment at the weekend, I ended up having to buy a new fermentation bin since the old one had cracked in a few places.

 Thankfully, there's a home brew show on Dumbarton Road in Glasgow - Glenbrew - which stocks a huge range of brewing supplies, so a quick lunchtime trip was all that was required for me to have a new fermentation bin in hand. Sadly it was just a flying visit so I didn't have time to hang around and have a proper look at what they have in stock, but my first impressions were pretty positive - seems a well-stocked shop with a friendly and knowledgeable owner.

 So I'm off to get things started - more to follow in the next day or two!

The Belgian Attitude

Here is where it all began.

As a Scot with a Belgian grandmother and a father who is a huge real ale fan, I suppose the chances were pretty high that I'd develop a fondness for beer.  Over the years I've enjoyed a wide range of good beers, and I've always come back to some of the fantastic Belgian trappist ales when I felt like something special.  For my tastebuds, the king of the trappist ale is Orval - a hoppy, fruity delight of an ale which can be savoured from the first sip to the last.

Earlier this year, my wife and I had a few days holiday in Belgium. One afternoon, while sitting in a cafe near the Belfry in Bruges and sipping an Orval, I realised something which I've probably always known but hadn't really given much thought to - the Belgian attitude to beer is exactly right.  Go into any bar and you can expect to find a beer menu with a large range of different ales, each of which will customarily be served with care in its own particular glass, said to be designed to best bring out the flavour of each individual beer.  The beer is treated as a drink to be respected, savoured, relished and enjoyed at leisure.  Compare this with your average bar in Scotland; a fridge full of generic bottled lagers, a few taps of different lagers, perhaps a Guinness tap, and if you're lucky perhaps an ale or two.  It's like comparing a locally-run delicatessen, where the best of produce is lovingly sold, to a pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap supermarket.

Given the choice of savouring a couple of nice trappist ales or throwing six pints of mass-produced tasteless lager down my throat, I'll take the Belgian approach any day of the week!  They brew strong beer which is full of flavour, and which really should be treated with respect.

Thankfully, I think this approach is slowly gaining headway in Scotland.  Independent Scottish breweries such as Fyne Ales, Williams Bros, WEST and the magnificent Brewdog seem to be becoming much more popular, and the availability of craft beer from other countries is steadily improving.  So bring it on - let's keep that Belgian attitude and savour some great quality beer!