What is your brewery capacity?
That’s a hard one to answer really as all breweries can be manipulated to achieve volumes out with your plants normal capabilities. Even micros these days can contract out, so making comparisons is difficult, but we are most interested in quality not volume

What is different about your brewery?
We are a small family brewery where compromise is a dirty word. Our beers are brewed today as they were in 1858 and our brewers eyes, ears, and nose haven’t been replaced by computers. Any one of our 5 Heriot-Watt qualified brewers sill ‘mash in’ the traditional way.

We’re not adverse to improvements though and pioneer new, novel equipment and processes that safeguard our team and push our beers to be the best.

How long have you been brewing for?
I’ve been brewing at Taylors since 1999, fresh faced out of Herriot-Watt after helping write their Distance Learning Course in Malting & Brewing post graduation.

How did you get into brewing?
Ahh a classic….’I met a girl……… Pretty simple really… misspent youth coiffing cask ale in and around Newcastle! Cutting my teeth on cans of Webster’s and Draught Theakstons XB. Then a girl friend (who now works for Diageo) pointed out there was a Degree in Brewing. My eyes lit up, it turned out to be full of subjects that floated my boat (Biology’s predominantly) and that was that. I packed up and shipped off to Edinburgh to learn the ways of the Brewer.

What beers do you brew regularly?
We regularly put out our core brands of Landlord (4.3%), Boltmaker (4.0%) Golden Best (3.5%) Ram Tam (4.3%) & Dark Mild (3.5%) in cask then obviously Bottled Landlord (4.1%)

What special/seasonal beers do you brew?
One of the brewers faves is Havercake which makes an appearance from time to time… (shh you never know!!) Fantastic in bottle but to die for in cask. The mix of coloured and speciality malts (Oats! 2 kinds) and Kentish hops just combine so well. Moreish doesn’t do justice.

Where do you think the future of brewing lies?
Hard to say really. From a product perspective I’d like to think that beer drinkers will drive the market forward in terms of quality, and that us brewers will respond to the challenge. The current choice and variety of beer out there today is phenomenal and a fantastic testament to a humble drink with its roots in the fabric of our lives. Beer has provided the world for hundreds if not thousands of years with a clean source of nutrition (& pleasure). Long may it last!

Do you bottle/keg/cask your beer?
Bottle and cask

What is you proudest moment in brewing?
Ooh that’s a toughy! Being at GBBF and hearing ‘Timothy Taylors’ & ‘GOLD!’ has to be up there but then the day to day achievments of keeping a 150 yr old brewery ticking over are often a ‘cheers’ and toast worthy at the end of a hellish day. Being a TT brewer is pretty cool… I must admit.

Do you have any brewing regrets?
Nope!

What is your brewing ambition?
Just to keep making the best beer possible and keep the drinkers coming back for more! Mind you Timothy Taylors Head Brewer & Production director has a nice ring to it!

What was last beer you drank?
Just in from a post work QA session at the Red Pig Keighley so ‘Landlord’. It’s gotta be special to get me off the BBBB!

What is your favourite hop and why?
Really love the English varieties! Fuggles in particular. Luckily for me I get to go see our specially grown fuggles on hop walk every year. Their box shape is mesmerising and their subtle yet powerful aromas and flavours really add that je ne sais quoi to a beer. I’m not a massive fan of American hops, but maybe that’s unfair and its more to do with their unbalanced use that seems trendy at the moment.

What is your favourite beer/food combo?
To be honest, last night I had a bottle of landlord (or two) with a tapas’y style meat cheese pickles combo… and it just hit the spot! Healthy too, well healthy-ish.

Do you have a Brewing hero/inspiration?
The profs at HW were all pretty inspirational. I know that sounds a bit sucky but its true. That can’t be the whole list though and with so many compadres in the industry where would I stop.

If you could brew one collaboration beer with someone who would it be with and what would it be?
Top secret!

If you could share a pint with someone dead or alive who would it be, what would be the beer and where would you have it?
Erm Robert ‘Rocket’ Stephenson would be pretty interesting I think and Bobby Robson. Can you tell I’m a Geordie? Alive maybe Olivia Colman! Two Baftas, two great speeches and she always seems to just be herself. Ooh Lauren Laverne!! That’d be a pretty good night round the bar at the Red Pig Keighley. Best jukebox in Yorkshire! Pint of Havercake in hand.

Which beer do you wish you had brewed?
Harvey’s Old Ale is a corker! Ssshhhh… I did get to Brew Harveys Best Bitter though! Mesopotamian Ale! Imgaine being the first person to ever make beer!!… you’d be pleased as punch!

How do you spend your time when you aren’t brewing?
When am I not brewing??!?! Erm this

If you could have one superhero superpower what would it be?
Iron Mans suit would be pretty cool! Can I have that? He’s kind of a superhero. No! Ok well Supermans flight ability for sure. Fly me to the moon………

Do you have a website/twitter/blog?
I can be stalked on Twitter @TTBrewerNick, instagram BrewmasterB and sometimes I make an appearance @TimothyTaylors www.timothytaylors.co.uk and excitingly Facebook too now,

Anything else you want to tell us?
I was once told I was allergic to yeast by a complimentary therapist…. I obviously took heed. Some things in life are just worth it! #borntobrew

What is your Brewery name and where did it come from?
Natural Selection Brewing. I don’t quite know the origin, I guess it just evolved. (I love bad puns)

What is your brewery capacity?
We are working with Stewart Brewing Co. In Edinburgh and brew out of their facillity. Luckily they just opened a new place that we get to play in!

What is different about your brewery?
We are part of a pretty unique and exciting project. We are all getting our master’s degrees from Heriot-Watt University and being part of Natural Selection is our master’s project. Natural Selection brewing was started three years ago by Steve Stewart of Stewart Brewing and Prof. David Quain of the International Centre for Brewing & Distilling at Heriot-Watt. Each year four students are chosen to create a beer and take it from concept through to market. It allows us an opportunity to gain understanding into what it takes to run a brewery. While the team and beer differ from year to year, the name and reputation continue on.

Natural Selection Brewing

How long have you been brewing for?
Each of us  has brewed professionally in various capacities prior  to coming to Heriot-Watt. I worked at Durango Brewing Co. In Durango, Colorado, USA for 18 months beofre coming to Edinburgh.

How did you get into brewing?
We all started as homebrewers and eventually found the opportunity to take the plunge into working in breweries fulltime.

What beers do you brew regularly?
As mentioned earlier, each year the team releases one beer available the summer of their respective year. The beer is brewed once and thats it. The first beer was Finch, a hoppy American style amber. Last year was Anorak, a sessionable wheat beer. This year we are releasing Origin, a Rye Saison brewed will all Australian and New Zealand hops. Each year output has doubled over the previous. The first year they brewed 10bbls and this year we slated to brew 40!

Where do you think the future of brewing lies?
Britain is going to keep growing like crazy for the next decade. Its a very exciting time to be a brewer in the UK. I expect Edinburgh will see more and more breweries opening in the city sooner than later.

Do you bottle/keg/cask your beer?
All three we don’t discriminate.

What is you proudest moment in brewing?
It will be when I see the first pint of Origin poured at the bar.

What is your brewing ambition?
I think all of us would like to open our own brewery one day.

What was last beer you drank?
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Its funny as the craft brewing movement continues to thrive its easy to forget how good a SNPA is. I have the utmost respect for Sierra Nevada for being able to continue to put out such a high quality beer.

What is your favourite hop and why?
While I love the huge fruit forward hops coming from NZ and Australia, if I had to pick one hop it would be Cascade.  It is such a versatile hop that can be used for any number of styles.

What is your favourite beer/food combo?
Lately I have been really into beer and cheese pairings. There are so many possible flavour combinations  and beer is perfect foil for good cheeses. One of the best ones I have had recently is Isle of Mull cheddar with a big, resiny IPA. The malt backbone is a nice match for the sharpness and slight saltiness of the cheddar while the hops keep the pallet fresh and looking for more. We are hosting a beer and cheese night where we pair three vastly different cheeses with our Saison. Its great how different aspect of the beer work with each cheese.

Do you have a Brewing hero/inspiration?
I really look up to the men and women who pioneered this industry. While it is still no easy task to open a craft brewery, these guys had the added burden of starting the whole movement! I am especially inspired by the breweries that have allowed their progressive ethos to permeate all aspects of their company. It is refreshing to see an industry where environmental sustainability and employee quality of life is part of the mission statement.

If you could brew one collaboration beer with someone who would it be with and what would it be?
Brasserie Dupont, they set the standard for Saisons!

If you could share a pint with someone dead or alive who would it be, what would be the beer and where would you have it?
I would love to go back in time to when Saisons were still brewed by individual

This required a bit more thought that previous brews as I knew I didn’t want to get too much bitterness from the tea but still needed to get the flavour out and into the beer.

Once again the bulk of the ingredients were liberated from Truefitt Brewery, starting off with about 7kg of 2 row pale malt, some whole leaf Riwaka, Columbus and Willamette hops. I also borrowed a bigger boiler in the hope that I could make a slightly bigger batch of beer meaning that by the time I’d lost beer to yeast and dry hopping I’d still have a decent sized batch to experiment with.

I’d already bought the tea, some Taylors of Harrogate leaf Jasmine Green Tea which I’d picked up from the excellent Shepherds Purse in Whitby, I’d also picked up a couple of new glass demijohn’s and my mother in law had made me a great new grain bag from some net material I got from Boyes, so I asked a few people who might know about putting tea in beer if what I was planning sounded like a decent idea, listened to their advice and I was ready to go.

I didn’t use the boiler I had used on my previous brews as Matt lent me a slightly bigger one meaning I could get a bit more in and compensate for the beer I’d loose to evaporation, yeast and dry hopping. I also decided to treat my water for the first time, I used a campden tablet in the hope that it might help improve the finished beer. I’d also picked up a new thermometer on Ebay for a fraction of its RRP.

The new net bag held the 7kg of malt perfectly with no grains escaping through the closure, the boiler took the malt well along with 20litres of water so there were no issues of water comping over the top, it also gave me plenty of space to turn the bag and move the grains around so I could make sure they were all completely soaked.

As with my previous 3 brews I left the mash for 60 mins before transferring the wort, which was then boiled for 60 minutes.

This is where I made the main change from previous brews by reducing the amount of hops that went in drastically as I didn’t want to obliterate the tea I also decreased the  number of hops that went in early and put the majority of hops in late to try and maximize their flavour and aroma.

For bittering I added a tiny 15g  of  Columbus at the start and another 15g  Columbus at 30 mins. Then at 15 mins I added 15g each of Riwaka, Willamette and Columbus. Finally at flame out I added another 15g of each of the hops.

Along with the hops that I added at flame out I added some of the green jasmine tea in the hope that there would be enough heat to bring out the tea and jasmine without getting too many tannins into the beer making it too bitter and too dark. This was left for about 20 minutes before being transferred, I checked the gravity and it was a touch high so I added a few litres of water to reduce it and also increase the final yield.

This was then left to cool in my big bucket filled with cold water and ice packs, It does take ages but it seems to work, one day I will get a chiller to speed things up, but at least it meant I could pop into town for a LemonTop ice cream and a couple of new demijohns.

On my return the brew had cooled enough so I pitched a packet of US-05 yeast, covered it up, wrapped it in my old sleeping bag and put it in the corner of the dining room. I was surprised at just how fast it fermented this time taking just less than 4 days. I did stop it a little earlier than I had planned in order to keep a little bit of residual sweetness in the beer and allow for it dropping a bit more in the demijohns.

I transferred the beer into the 4 clean demijohns, then my experimenting started 1 had nothing added to it, 1 had some extra tea added to it, one had some extra of each of the hops added and the other had some tea and some of each of the hops. These were then left for a bit before being transferred to the fridge for a few more days.

Bottling was fun as I’d attached my little bottler to my syphoning cane instead of my bucket which worked a treat until the bottler device fell off and I lost a couple of pints on the floor.

I tried all 4 beers after a week in the bottle and was pleased with how different each one tasted as that was the point of the experiment, they will all definitely benefit from another couple of weeks in the bottle but the early signs were promising, the  jasmine green tea came through in all 4 versions the carbonation was getting there, they were also starting to clear nicely.  I preferred one over the others but I’m not saying which until the people I’ve given tasters to have tried them but I think with a few tweaks it would make a great full sized batch.

The stats for this brew:

Batch size: 20l

OG:1054

FG:1010

ABV: 5.8%

IBU 73.2

Colour: 6.6 SRM (although I think it’s darker due to the tea)

Gallery

Thanks to @guybigguy for the name.

The perfect pint?

It’s pale golden in colour there’s lots of pineapple and orange peel on the nose, the taste is perfectly balanced, it’s well hopped to the point where you can taste them but they don’t destroy your taste buds, there’s bags of citrus peel and a little bit of peach tied in with a touch of gassiness that mellows the more you drink. The balance makes it really crisp and clean and oh so moreish and refreshing, especially when the other beers on the bar are a lot sweeter and maltier.

The pub it’s self  (The Old Coast Guard) was a pub we didn’t really like the first time we went to Mousehole, this time it seemed more relaxed had a nicer atmosphere and was always full of people (and dogs), we had two fantastic meals in there and I’d argue the beer went with both my fish and pork as well as any wine on the wine list.

All told the beer was good enough for me to keep going back to Old Coast Guard every day for nearly a whole week and to drink more than a couple of pints on each occasion, whether were kicking back in the garden enjoying the view, curled up on the comfy chairs at the end of the bar or in the restaurant eating. It was the perfect beer.

In fact I think it’s so good it’s my favourite sub 4% cask beer in the UK right now!

I can’t recommend it highly enough and I’ve heard a rumour the bottles will be online soon which I can’t wait to try, the other bottled Harbour Beers that I’ve tried have mostly impressed along with their lovely touchy feely labels and clean simple branding.

Nice pump clip!

Oh and if you are passing the brewery give them a shout and see if you can pop in, the brew kit is beautiful and something to behold.

You can read a bit more about them here as they filled in my meet the brewer a while back.

Ag#3 was an attempt to improve on my last two pale ales and uses some Dr Rudi hops which I liberated from Truefitt brewery when I helped brew the first version of Truefitt trembler.

The brew day it’s self was probably the best one to date, it went smoothly and I made less mess than the previous times.

The only downside was that I possibly liquored back a but too much so ended up with a beer that was a bit weaker than I was aiming for.

The malt bill was the same as my other brews, using 7kg of pale malt which I put in a big net bag to make cleaning a bit easier.

The hops were:

• Green Bullet
• Dr Rudi
• Pacific Gem
• Riwaka
• Pacifica

The first batch went In 30 mins from the end, the second 15 mins from the end, a few 5 mins from the end then the majority at flame out, which were then left to steep for a bit.

The wort was then transferred and cooled in a big bucket of water with some freezer packs and frozen bottles of water in and after adding a bit of water I reduced the OG to 1062.

I used US05 yeast again and pitched it at a touch over 20 degrees, fermentation seemed to fly by and was down to 1010 in no time. I had planned to use an aquarium heater to keep it warm but it seemed to do a good enough job on it’s own.

After another raid on the Truefitt hop store I dry hopped it with 20g of each of Riwaka, Pacific gem, Pacifica and Green Bullet and cold conditioned for a week before bottling it.

In total there was 380g of hops used  so I was hoping for a big punch pale ale with plenty of aroma… I wasn’t disappointed although the bottles that I’ve had recently have expectedly lost some of the freshness.

I’ve also been pleased at how well the beer has cleared it’s certainly the clearest beer I’ve made to date.

We flew from Newcastle to Brussels then got the train from the airport to Bruges which took about an hour and a half and involved one change, The trains were quite posh and very clean, they staff at the airport station were really helpful and printed us out a list of stops so we could work out where we were. Next time I’d possibly book the train in advance just to save a few quid.

The beer wall is under the tree on the left

Firstly we stayed in a lovely little B&B that was recommended to us by @fletchthemonkey, it was in a really handy location, just outside of the town so it was nice and quiet, it was comfy and clean, the breakfasts were excellent (served either in your room or with the owner in his dining room) and the mini bar was superb, containing well priced beers from local micros and bigger breweries, they even had Westvleteren 12 in the cellar for a couple of euros a bottle. They even gave us a little card that meant we could get discount off entry to various places in the city.

On the subject of price, it varies massively, in one pub you might find Cantillon Fou Foune for 15 Euros in another it will be 30, that said most places seem to be quite consistent for things like Bruges Zot, Duvel, La Chouffe and other draft beers.

The first pub we we ended up in was called Het Hof Van Rembrandt (I think) it seemed like a bit of a chain but it had some cracking beers on and was modern and clean inside and the beers didn’t seem to badly priced, especially as I’d chosen to start with a N’ice La Chouffe, It was here our exploration began, visiting various sights interspersed with a bar or two, so without further ado here’s a few of the places we visted and enjoyed.

Staminee De Garre - Lovely little old pup with gnarly stairs and old wooden beams, drink the house beer it’s delicious. Cheese platter was tasty too

Trying the De Garre house beer

Cambrinus - probably the busiest bar in Bruges, it’s worth booking if you want to get in on a Friday/Saturday night especially if you want to eat, the beer list was like an encylopedia, we hit it lucky and managed to get the last table in the place so decided we’d make the most of it and eat, we opted for the brewers menu which was 3 courses each containing beer, starting off with a cheese and beer croquette, followed by beef in beer with fries then a beery crème brulee, each course was a good size and extremely tasty, the beers we had were delicious, both the house beers were spot on and the bottles we tried were in great condition, we did go back a second time just for drinks where amongst others we tried beer from a glass horn, worth it just for the photos.

Brugs Beertje - I’ve wanted to go here ever since seeing it on the Hairy Bikers program and we weren’t disappointed, the beer list was brilliant with a wide selection of styles and varying prices, we shared a few bottles of Lambic and Geueze before treating our selves to a big bottle of Rodenbach Caractère Rouge which was simply stunning, we also had a good chat to the lady I recognised off the TV,  It does get busy on a night so go early or you might not get in.

Cafe de Kelk – We came across Cafe de Kelk by accident when taking a bit of a breather after eating, it was quite dark inside and wasn’t very busy but had a nice atmosphere and a good range of Lambic beers along with lots from Struise brewery, although I didn’t try any of them as was in the mood for sour stuff.

Vlissinghe - Didn’t have the best range of beers but is apparently the oldest pub in Bruges, it certainly felt like stepping back in time while we were in there.

Cafe Rose Red - instantly recognisable by the hundreds of red roses hanging from the ceiling, polite staff, nice cheese and plenty of different beers to suit just about everyone, I worked my way through the large mirror of Geueze while the Mrs drank Kriek.

Struise Shop – OK technically not a pub but a great little beer shop which you can have a glass or two of key kegged beer while browsing.

Duvelorium

‘t Terrastje - This was just round the corner from the B&B had some lovely Christmas beers on as well as a small but perfectly formed bottle range, the Orval seemed cheap too. We didn’t have food but it looked and smelled very tasty indeed. It’s also ran buy a British guy and his wife, the sign outside the door explaining opening times is funny.

Duvelorium - This is inside the Historium museum in the main square, It’s worth going just for the stained glass ceiling. The beer range was decent and the Duvel salt poporn was amazing. Don’t worry you don’t have to pay to get into the bar it’s just up the stairs as you enter the museum, before the ticket desk.

The Beer wall / 2be - A huge wall of beer that ends with a bar and beer garden over looking the river, lots of bottled beer and a good range of beer on tap, the beer shop is down stairs and has a massive selection of bottles from all around Belgium along with a few from further afield.

We did visit other bars which we enjoyed but we did’t get photos of them or take their names down, there was one particular one which was full of white plastic “designer” chairs that had a fantastic range of Phantome beers.

Every pub we went in the staff were extremely friendly and we enjoyed a chat with most of them, some were surprised at the beer styles we’d ordered, saying they didn’t get many English people ordering them, it would seem most tourists simply ask for the biggest and strongest beers they have. If we couldn’t decide what to have or wanted advice they were only too happy to help.

Most pubs offer some kind of snack involving meat, cheese or bread…even better all three, most also give you a little bowl of nibbles with your beer to help soak up the booze.

a bit of the beer wall

While we were there we also booked a meal in Den Dyver which wasn’t cheap but was absolutely outstanding, we had a glass of the house beer then both opted for the beer menu to accompany our food, the portions were big, perfectly cooked and had lots of exciting flavours which went well with the beer provided, the staff also seemed knowledgeable and the decor was lovely.

Another excellent meal we had was in Sint Joris where I had pork cooked in Kriek which I could have sat and eaten all day long.

As you’d imagine there are hundreds of beer and chocolate shops, I can’t remember the names of the beer shops but there’s hardly a street without one, There were however two chocolate shops that stood out, the first was the Chocolate Line who made lots of crazy flavours including tabacco, wasabi, fried onion or bacon, It’s not cheap but it’s worth trying. The other was DuMon who’s pralines were absolutely delicious. The hot chocolate in De Proverie was delicious.

We used the voucher our B&B gave us to buy a museum pass as it wasn’t much more expensive than just going up the tower and allowed you entry into a lot of the other museums and galleries, plus the church with the Michelangelo statue in.I think we went in pretty much all of the museums on the list but most of the museums weren’t that great, the tower was certainly worth climbing the narrow stairs for, although it’s best to do it early morning before it gets busy and before you’ve had too much beer.

De Halve Mann brewery is a must, the tour guide was hilarious and informative, the view from the top of the brewery is stunning and it’s like no other brewery I’ve been round, the bar at the bottom is great too, we had our complimentary glass of beer next to the roaring log fire.

Room beer..

The boat trips are worth a go as it gives you a different perspective on the city, our guide was from England and reminded me a bit of John Cleese, he was great fun and certainly knew his stuff.

I’d say to avoid the chocolate museum, it was pricey, chaotic and the displays were mainly made of playmobil, the demo at the end seemed rushed and you got 1 tiny little chocolate.

Everywhere was really Christmassy and we spent a lot of time in the Markets drinking Gluhwine, eating sausages,crepes or chips n mayo, I’d definitely recommend a visit near Christmas as there was a really nice atmosphere and of course there are lots of Christmas beers to try.

One more thing to look out for is Speculoos, it’s those little lotus biscuits crushed up into a paste…it’s so moreish it’s dangerous.

That’s pretty much our trip to Bruges in a nutshell, we did call in at Brussels on the way home, which had an amazing array of bars but I just didn’t like the place as much, we managed to squeeze in the Cantillon brewery (a must as it’s one of my favourite breweries and the tour includes plenty of beer) along with Moeder lambic (great beer and delicious snacks, especially the lambic cheese spread), Delirium and the Hard Rock Cafe along with the Christmas market and strange Christmas tree, the light show was fab!

Check out more of my photos on Flickr here.

AG#2 was another pale ale for which I was aiming for 6% ABV and planned to use hops from New Zealand, as with AG#1 it was brewed in the conservatory, much to the wife’s disgust.

The malt bill was simple, a big bag of Pale Malt with a tiny bit of torrefied wheat thrown in. The hops ended up being Cluster, Riwaka and Pacific Gem – 380g in total. All in a big net curtain then put into the hot water and covered for an hour. I quite like the idea of getting a separate mash tun but the net curtain seems to work and also makes for easy cleaning, I’ve since asked the mother in law to turn the curtain into two bags, one for malt and one for hops so will see how that works out later.

The cluster were pellets and went in 60mins from the end to add a little bit of bitterness,  Some of the Riwaka and Pacific Gem went in at 30mins and 15mins from the end then the rest were used to dry hop the beer later on.

The actual brew went pretty smoothly although there was a tiny bit of boil over when I added the Cluster pellets, I also found that using all pellets clogged up the hop filter when I was trying to drain the wort into my fermentation bucket, So  I really need to find a way round that in the future as it took ages to drain the wort off.

I cooled the brew using ice packs and a big bucket of water to stand the FV in, It takes a little bit of time but give’s me chance to clean everything down and tidy up, it would be nice to have a proper chiller but this works and doesn’t cost £40.

Once the wort was down to pitching temperature I sprinkled over the US-05 Yeast, clipped on the lid, wrapped in my old sleeping bag and put in the cupboard to ferment.

It started to ferment quite quick before getting stuck, so I gave it a bit of a shake which seemed to kick things back into action and it was soon time to add the dry hops, which I may have over done a little as I added 100g each of Pacific Gem and Riwaka. I then put the FV in the fridge and left it for a week.

At the end of the week it was time to bottle, the only problem was the dry hops and yeast had combined to form a thicker than usual sludge which was sat well above the tap on my FV, so I decided to syphon the beer into a new clean bucket, prime  and bottle it from that.  I was a little worried about infection at this stage but it seemed to work out OK.

Two weeks later the bottles had conditioned nicely but were still quite hazy, they were tasting good but a little bit too bitter, looking at the app on my phone it worked out at 102.3 IBU with a BU:GU ratio of 1.76 so a little bit unbalanced, but at 5.8% so not too far off what I was aiming for although I knew I’d have to change the bitterness for v3 and try to aim for something a bit more balanced.

The beer was also a little bit thin so I’d like to get a bit more body from my next beer.

The clarity has been improving as the weeks have passed but the freshness I like from then hops has disappeared along with a lot of the Aroma, the beer has had some decent feedback from people who I’ve given it too but still lots of room for improvement. Hopefully v3 will be that bit closer.

I didn’t know much about the beer so was a bit surprised when it poured as dark as it did for some reason I was expecting something paler, not to matter it smelled pretty good, with a little bit of chocolate and a faint whiff of hops. In the mouth it was a lot drier than I expected, but in a good way as it stopped the beer from being to sweet. There was plenty of grapefruit and a little bit of booze towards the end…..nice and uncomplicated but in no way boring.

It could have maybe done with a tiny bit more fizz but other than that it’s a really cracking beer, it’s got plenty going for it without being too shouty, the branding’s nice too.

The beer list should be published on the 1st March, when it is i’ll put it up on here or at least a link to whet your apetite.

For more info checkout http://www.gatesheadbeerfestival.co.uk/

The clock had just hit 12 and I’d gone against my usual rule of only drinking 1/2′s on a day out in Toon and ordered a pint. One very quickly turned into two and two into 3, I then. Wavered and tried the Wylam Haxan Black Wit beer, I plumped for th cask version as thought it had more flavour than the kegged version and It brought out the spices more.  Once that was done I was back to the Mad Hatter for a few more pints, this was despite the amazing array of beers that,  as always were on offer in one of my favourite pubs. I honestly can’t remember the last time I went in a pub and drank that much of the same beer.

The beer it’s self…well it’s 6.2% ABV and brewed on the Outlaw plant, nestled in the corner of Roosters brewery, it’s the same plant I brewed my wedding beer on It was brewed by Ol from Roosters and Melissa Cole using Jasmine and Green Tea (you can read more about that here) It’s slightly hazy but has a really lovely golden glow to it, almost like someone dropped a glow stick in it. It’s really floral on the nose, almost like freshly washed bed sheets….no really. The jasmine was definitley there in the taste along with a good dose of lemon and fresh grassy hop flavour. It was slighly sweet but this was balanced by the bitterness from the green tea which with the slightly oily body helped hide the ABV and made Mad Hatter far too easy to drink.

It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but I loved it! It really made me fall in love with beer again, It was different and geniuently beautiful…Hat’s off to Roosters (and Melissa) for prouducing the best beer I’ve had in ages.