Inaugural brew

Metalman Pale Ale was born yesterday!

I pulled on my sparkly wellies at 6am on Friday morning and set to work under careful supervision by the brewery owner.

The grain was weighed and milled. (I still find 25kg of grain a bit of a struggle to lug around, that’s really going to have to change.) Water was heated to appropriate temperatures.  Many buttons were pressed on the swanky White Gypsy brewing kit, resulting in valves opening and pumps springing to life.

All very sophisticated, and not very applicable at all to what our little brewery will be like once it’s installed, but hey – I can live the dream for now, and pretend it’s my posh brewery we’re brewing in.

But I digress. The kettle was set to a rolling boil, and I got the opportunity to dump a kilo and a half of hops into it – twice! A far cry from the 45g additions that happen in my kitchen when we are pilot-brewing, it seemed almost decadent. Lots of lovely Cascade and Amarillo for flavour and aroma -  I’m giddy at the very thought.

To complement my attractive boots, I also had the opportunity to don a pair of fetching black elbow-length rubber gloves (sorry, no photos of that one) to scrub the fermenter, clean out the mash-tun, and divest the whirlpool of its hop sludge – the slightly less-glamorous side of the job. Ahem, OK, that’s being kind – glamorous is not an appropriate adjective to use for this brewing gig. Ever.

But that’s ok – because when I was dispatched into the fermentation room to take a sample of *my* beer for a gravity reading, it more than made up for the unattractive conditions one must endure in this business. Beer! Lots of lovely beer! And I made it! (With a little help from some friends.)

So what’s next? Well, while the beer ferments and conditions for a few weeks, I need to get my hands on some kegs to package it in, finalise the artwork for the beermats, glassware and badges, and get them on order. Oh, and then start selling it. Something tells me the it’s the easy part that’s done….