The Great British Beer Festival

This year's festival was awesome. 4.5 Days of trying new beers. Here's the list of the new beers I tried this year.

It's curry o'clock

I've spent the last week researching curries and in particular how the restaurants and takeaways make it. Previously when making a curry I would fry spices in a wok, add onions, garlic and ginger, and then meat. Yoghurt, cream, a tin of tomatoes could all be participants in the recipe but I never really reached the same consistency as my local takeaway. I tried liquidizing onions and adding that to the wok and this did start to improve matters. My main problem is that you'd end up with too much liquid and invariably you'd have to add ground almonds or dessicated coconut to soak up some of the juices released from the meat. Tins of tomatoes also seem so have a pocket of water that would contribute to the mix. 

Round the bend & over the hill?

Just last week I celebrated my 30th birthday. I remember when I was a teenager I thought that being 30 wouldn't happen for ages, but before you realize it's crept up on you. I was trying to think if I felt different and I've decided that yes, there is some sort of feeling of reaching a milestone, but not really of getting any older. There is of course the worry that time is starting to run out and the realization that 40 is only 10 years away. When I look back at the changes that have occurred in my life in the time between when I was 20 and 30 I don't feel quite so bad as it seems that I have actually achieved quite a lot. I'm guessing these next ten years will also be filled full of interesting activities and strange occurrences.

Chilling out in Aberystwyth

Long Itchington Beer Festival

This weekend is the Long Itchington Beer Festival. One village, 6 pubs, 80 beers, 4 days! Let's hope the weather holds. Pictures of the day can be found on the Media page.

Easter Brewing

As part of my Easter holidays I tried to reconstruct Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout. The recipe should be 5.0% and contains Pale, Crystal and Black Malts as well as Roasted Barley and Instant Oatmeal. The hops are Fuggles.

Fish Poo and Leeches

As the summer is quickly approaching we thought it would be a good time to give our pond a spring clean. The fish definitely agreed as they had been obscured in murk for a few weeks. Donning our pond cleaning hats we quickly set to work with must gusto. The process was more harrowing then either of us thought! Cleaning the filters was it's usual hellish nightmare. Lots of smelly fish poo and large fat leeches to be washed down the drain.

Visit to St Peters Brewery

Last weekend a friend and I drove to Sulfolk for a weekend at the St Peter's Brewery. St Peter's is one of my favourite breweries in the UK and I've always wanted to go. On the way we stopped off at Beers of Europe in King's Lynn. Beers of Europe is a massive warehouse that contains around 3,000 bottled beers. I managed to buy another 10 beers from my "beer challenge" book. After a very interesting chat with the man behind the counter we got back in the car and set off again.

Virtual Guitar Modelling at last!

Well I've finally got my hands on a Roland V-Guitar system. I've been wanting to own one ever since I saw an article on them in Total Guitar back in 1995. Things have progressed since then and the VG-8 has been updated to the VG-99. Once I'd managed to install the pickup ( involved me drilling some holes in my guitar :S ) it was pretty much plain sailing. A bit of calibration and some mucking about with sticky tape and I was away. I must admit I'm very impressed with the range of tones it can produce. I'm glad to have access to some very nice strat sounds without having to drag my old Fender Squier out of the cupboard! :D. The bass sounds are very interesting too, and the quality of the built in effects are much better than my aged Korg AX30G. There's a big thick manual to wade through so it's looking like I'm going to have to try and finish some of those songs! Watch this space!

DecemberFest 2008

Posted by admin on 12/28/08. This year's DecemberFest proved a great success! 7 Ales, 24 guests and 30kg of meat made this a night to remember. The celebrations went on well into the morning with some brave souls partying until 4am. I was quite apprehensive about the beers we'd brewed, but they all turned out well and were generally well received. The following beers were served at the party:-