Sausages and Mash with a Murphy's Irish Stout Onion Gravy

There's nothing better than a first class sausage (stop sniggering at the back please) and recently I've discovered that the ones in the butchery at the Hollies Farm Shop in Little Budworth, Cheshire are absolutely sublime, and at about the same price as a 'luxury' supermarket sausage.

The great thing is, you can mix and match, so I went for two of the Cumberland, a couple of Welsh Dragon (with leek and chillies), and some olde English pork sausages. A sausage selection box for the carnivore!

I didn't want to marry these plump and juicy specimens with egg, chips and beans, and didn't want to drown them in a casserole either; especially as I was starving and wanted my tea fairly quickly.

A quick look in the fridge and there was a can of Murphy's winking at me, I started pouring and had a lightbulb over the head moment... onions... stout... sausages...

So enough story telling, my mouth's watering again as I write this and I only finished eating twenty minutes ago.

Ingredients (serves 2)
6 Good quality pork sausages (a variety of different ones if possible)
2 large potatoes - maris piper or King Edwards are best
Savoy cabbage
1 medium onion
1Tbsp plain flour
125ml Murphy's Irish Stout (Guinness will do too)
500ml chicken stock
1 tsp of Dijon Mustard
1tsp balsamic vinegar
Butter
Olive Oil
Salt and pepper

First of all get the spuds peeled, chopped and on the boil, bang your sausages under a medium hot grill, and then thinly slice your onion.

Into a saucepan add a generous knob of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil, heat it and when the butter has melted add the onions; cook these for about 5 minutes, until soft and a little golden. Once your onions have softened stir in the flour, and when mixed, add the stout, the stock, mustard, balsamic vinegar, and some salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and it should have started to thicken, turn the heat down to a lively simmer, leave and chop your cabbage.

By now your potatoes should be starting to get tender, with about 7 minutes to go, put your cabbage on (I prefer it steamed, but you can boil, it microwave it, or whatever you prefer.)

Turn your sausages over under the grill, and check on the gravy it should have reduced a little and be of a lovely consistency, turn the heat down and taste. Adjust seasoning and add some more mustard if you feel it needs it.

Check your potatoes with a fork, and if if tender, add milk and butter and mash them. Place a mound of mash on your plates, with the sausages and cabbage, then ladle the thick sauce over the top.

You'll be making this again, and again.

Fennel Sausage Pasta

This is a winter favourite, it warms you from the marrow of your bones to the skin on your cheeks; it’s satisfying, perfectly flavoured and dreadfully moreish. And, I made this version up myself!
This recipe is for four servings, but two hungry people can polish the lot off without too much difficulty, believe me, it happens every time I make it!
You can buy Italian fennel sausages, but they are nigh on impossible to track down in England, if you can't, then buy good quality pork sausages and follow the instructions below to make your own fennel sausage meatballs.

Ingredients:

1 bulb of fennel

500g bag of rigatoni

2 tins of chopped tomatoes
8 pork and fennel sausages

(or pack of 8 good pork sausages and another bulb of fennel)

a bunch of fresh basil

2 bay leaves

a teaspoon of chopped fresh oregano

1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar 

2 cloves of garlic

1 medium sized onion, chopped finely

1 or 2 125g balls of buffalo mozzerella

salt and pepper to taste

1 teaspoon of fennel seeds

½ glass of Italian red wine

If you have bought ready made fennel sausages you can skip this first step.
First of all slice the root end off one of the bulbs of fennel, and grate it quite coarsely into a large bowl, add the teaspoon of fennel seeds and get ready for the gooey bit!

Take a sausage and slide the blade of a knife down the length of it, slitting the skin, remove the skin, as you’d remove a cardigan and drop the sausage into the grated fennel; repeat with the rest of the sausages. Now get stuck into the mixture and squeeze, and squelch it with your hands until the fennel, sausage meat and seeds are well mixed. Form meatballs from this mixture.

Add the olive oil to a large frying pan on a medium heat, and cut your sausages into 2cm long pieces. Place each piece of sausage (or meatball) into the hot oil and let them sizzle away, turning occasionally; they should be a golden brown colour all over. When your sausages have reached the golden brown stage remove them from the pan and place them on some kitchen paper to drain.

Use the oil and juices left in the pan to soften your garlic, chopped onion and the bulb of fennel, finely chopped. After about five minutes, add the chopped tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, bay leaves, half of the basil (finely chopped), oregano and wine to the frying pan. Season the sauce with salt and ground black pepper, and let it bubble away for a about 5 minutes, while you boil a large pan of quite heavily salted water.

At this point preheat your oven to 200˚C. When boiled, add all the pasta to the pan of water and leave to cook, then return the sausages to the frying pan and give them a quick stir so that they settle into the rich tomato sauce.

When the pasta is cooked, drain and pour it into a large gratin or lasagne dish, add the sausages and sauce to the dish and mix well. Tear the mozzarella cheese into small pieces and distribute evenly over the pasta. Finally, chop the remaining basil leaves and sprinkle them over the mozzerella, finish with black pepper and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the mozzerella is bubbling and golden.

Serve with garlic bread and red wine. I guarantee that you’ll be hooked!

Smoked Trout Kedgeree

Smoked trout kedgeree

At Christmas I was the lucky recipient of a Hollies Farm Shop gift voucher, to the tune of fifty quid;  from past experience, enough for two carrier bags of luxury, edible goodies.

Amongst the local sausages, rump steaks and divine patés (I was devastated that they'd sold out of Morecambe Bay potted shrimps) I bought a fairly hefty looking piece of smoked trout. Smoked trout is something I adore, but rarely buy; I don't know why not, this magnificent looking specimen was a shade over £3.

Smoked products have a great shelf life (and they say smoking is bad for you) so I had no need to rush it or freeze it and ruin it. Plenty of time to decide how to the rascal justice - this is what I came up with.

Smoked Trout Kedgeree (serves 2) From start to finish, this takes no more than 20 minutes and is something I'll be doing again.

You need:
1 smoked trout, flaked and boned
120g rice
Saffron
Juice of half a lemon
2 medium free range eggs
1 medium onion (thinly sliced)
3 spring onions
2 tsp curry powder
1 red chilli (chopped)
Fresh parsley
Salt and Pepper

Boil a kettle of water
Drop the eggs into a pan of the boiling water for 6-7 minutes, then remove from the heat and drain.
Boil the rice, with salt and saffron until tender (around 12 minutes)

While the eggs and rice are cooking warm some olive oil in a pan and over a fairly high heat cook the onions until they take on a soft texture, and a golden colour. By this point your rice should be cooked, so take that off the heat and drain it in a colander.
Add the curry powder to the hot onions and stir, then add the flaked trout, chopped chilli, spring onions and lemon juice. Reduce the heat and stir for two or three minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle in a small handful of chopped parsley and it's ready to serve.

Dish out onto a plate, then peel and cut your eggs into quarters, placing on top of the rice. Finish with a final flourish of parsley and dig in. 

Christmas or New Year? What's to like?

Like it or not, it's only round the corner: the festive season. Some dislike Christmas and practically orgasm over the whole process of planning and enjoying the build up to new year, others are totally the opposite and would rather forget that New Year's Eve happened at all. I'm somewhere in the middle and can take or leave either; if forced to make a choice, I'd have to weigh up the pros and cons.

Christmas - For:
Time off work, giving and receiving of presents, in fact indulgence of all sorts material and sensual. There's the Christmas Eve drinks with friends, knowing there's a lie in the morning, enjoying the conviviality of everyone's festive mood. Even the bin men are smiling and saying "Good morning", cynics would say they're just after a tip, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Intoxicated giggling at the back of the church for midnight mass, and then retiring fairly early, to sleep off the alcohol in time for the gluttonous orgy that awaits on waking.
For me, Christmas day starts with a shower, late-ish and then a stroll to the local for a glass of brandy and a couple of pints with friends. Then depending on who's hosting Christmas dinner, it's either a walk or a lift to the venue of choice. Once with the family, a frenzied hour of opening presents, drinking and then the three courses of calorie laden, Christmas cuisine. Once the pudding is done and everyone looks uncomfortably full that is it. That's Christmas. Done and dusted in around 24 hours, from Christmas Eve to Christmas night. So I go and sleep it off and then my holiday begins.

Christmas - Against:
I usually get to Christmas Eve and realise I've forgotten a present, or rather just been too disorganised to do much in the way of shopping and wrapping, so there's a last minute whip around shops brimful of excited children and quarrelling parents. Hell on earth.People panic buying like there's going to be a siege - the supermarkets are only closed for a day or two in most cases and, there's still the corner shop which will be open right the way through.
Pubs, packed to the rafters with strangers, visiting relatives of others, people that don't usually enter the portals of a boozer any other time of the year and haven't the faintest idea how these institutions work. Dithering at the bar, wafting their arms about and after 5 minutes deliberation ordering a St. Clements. Other than the above, Christmas is ok.

New Year's Eve:
Well it's like Christmas, but without the turkey and presents, and with the knowledge that you've got one more day before it's back to the grindstone of another year.

That's why I prefer Christmas.

When is a Tattoo Sleeve Not a Sleeve?

Tattoo ink has been added to my right arm over a period of 3 years now and it's still not finished, just when I think I'm going to fill it all up, what seems like an acre of skin yawns before me, crying out for the needle. It has a nautical theme, there's a pin up, a mermaid, a ship, anchors, swallows, a compass, lighthouse, kraken, and adding colour a jauntily angled yellow submarine near the elbow.

It started with the Sailor Jerry sailor girl pin up, I first came across her on the inside of a label of a bottle of spiced rum bearing the legendary tattooist's name. It took about an afternoon to realise that I wanted her on my arm. My right arm at this point a virgin to this ancient art. Appointment made for six weeks' time, but put my name on the cancellation list, a few days later I got a call and was told there was a slot that afternoon if I could make it. I could.

Watching her taking shape on my bicep, over the space of an hour, I was already thinking about the next bit. I knew then that she was the start of something bigger, and my thoughts turned to a sleeve. As you can see in the picture on the right, my artist had done an amazing job. I left his apprentice the brief of designing some more work to go around her and made another booking. Six weeks later she was embellished with an anchor, waves a ship's wheel and other nautical designs. This sleeve was going places.

Next was the ship, again based on a Sailor Jerry design, but instead of the Homeward script, I used the Irish Aimsir An Dea, which means either Good Times, or Good Weather - both of which are appropriate to me, and the tattoo.

The rate at which ink was now being injected into my skin was increasing and the addiction as strong as anything else which might involve a needle might be. My mermaid was to follow and she was a much bigger project, involving 3 hours of pain over a couple of sessions, the tattooist layering different shades of green to give the impression of depth to her iridescent scales. Since then there's been the homage to The Beatles, to submarines and to psychedelia. An impromptu anchor, a kraken attacking a paddle steamer and a leatherback turtle.

My point to this blog post is this, and this is my opinion only, others may have a different view, but when my sleeve is finished it will have probably taken at least 20 hours work over four years, and a considerable amount of cash. It will be made up of lots of different tattoos, with the small gaps of skin to be ultimately covered in scales and breaking waves, so that I'm left with an interesting and complex piece of art. It will not be a forearm tattoo, a bicep tattoo and a whole load of clouds lazily covering the rest of the skin. I've seen people with no ink at all, and then a month later they're wandering around showing off their sleeve. To me, that's not a sleeve. It's a short cut to a fashion statement. Isn't it?

Maybe I'm just a grumpy old curmudgeon! I'd love to hear other peoples' views on this.

Sun, Strings and Super Cold Cider: The Acoustic Festival of Great Britain 2012

This is my fourth time at the Acoustic Festival of Britain, described by the Guardian as "The cleanest, best kept festival in the UK". And it is.
As I mentioned in previous post, I much prefer the smaller festivals to the large corporate money traps that dominate the festival season. To give you a feel for it, here's my account of this year's jamboree!

Spacious camping

Day One
We arrived at the gates of Uttoxeter Racecourse at around 11am on Friday (25th May) and joined the usual queue of cars waiting entry - that was a queue of one - us. We were speedily issued with our wristbands, which reminds me I must remove mine, and off to find somewhere suitable for the tent; one of the big bonuses at this festival is that you can park your car next to your tent - there's no 2 mile slog, laden like a pack horse to endure. There is masses of space in the soft green fields to find a spot, and nowhere is more than, at most, a 10 minute walk from the arena, stages and shops. It's all incredibly civilised.
Tents up, it was time to enjoy the sunshine, cook breakfast, peruse the programme (extremely fairly priced at £3) and decide who we were going to watch over the next three days. There's a varied collection of styles, talents and ages and the little biogs in the brochure helped us plan our attack over a couple of pints of real ale.

Real ales available

First off was TJ & Murphy a guitar duo from Liverpool who gave a mellow, tuneful and enjoyable start to the day, sprinkling their finely crafted tunes with anecdotes and stories about why their songs came about. Then we took a first walk to the main stage for the enthusiastically billed but disappointing Shamus O'Blivion; I'm a huge fan of the Irish genre and celtic rock, but for me, these failed to hit the mark - maybe the crowd were a bit too sober to enjoy to the full. Following this we worked our way around a number of extremely talented acts in the various smaller stages watching performances of poetry, harp playing bands and solo artists. Then we made our way to the real ale tent, ordered a couple of Old Peculiers and found a place on the floor to watch Rodney Branigan - the man who can play two guitars at once, and how. This will be the fourth time I've seen Rodney and his set never fails to amuse and amaze, eminently talented on not one, but two guitars and a master of some entertaining banter in between tunes. I'm pleased to learn that Rodney will also be playing at this year's Kendal Calling festival too - so if you're going there, he's a must see!

The impressive main stage

As the real ale and cider kicked in, the sunshine and atmosphere washed over me and the hours passed quickly, until as the evening sun started to dip toward the horizon, The Move took to the main stage. There was plenty of interaction with the audience, and the band, as do pretty much all the bands at this festival looked as if they were having as good a time as the crowd. And what a crowd! An hour of memorable music finished with the classic Blackberry Way, which got everyone up singing, swaying and dancing.

Once the main stage, headline act has left at the end of their set there's still plenty going on in the other tents; we went to watch the candid and excellent guitarist, Adrian Nation, in the Dome, and then The Wee Bag Band. The latter played Irish songs with an air of the Wolfe Tones about them and got a packed real ale tent, diddly-i-aying along with them. The entertainment goes on until midnight, when there's a curfew and revellers retired to the campsite to sleep, chat, or sing and play guitar in their groups. Quietly, so others can sleep, though sleep came easily to me!

Day Two
Awaking in my tent, rested, and remarkable devoid of a hangover to glorious sunshine has to be one of the best ways to start the day. A shower hot if you don't mind a small queue in the morning, cold if you're up for the more invigorating option; I went for the cold one, and by the time I'd walked back to the tent I was bone dry. Hint: if you don't like cold showers, or queuing, then sneak back at about 3pm ish and you'll be straight in! Then my favourite part of camping: full English breakfast.

After spending the best part of an hour cooking and eating a leviathan plate full, it's time for a read and a chill in late morning sun, plotting which acts to see on day two.
First act to watch for me on Saturday, kicking off at noon were the Seven Little Sisters from Nottingham, only as they put it "we're all blokes, and there's only six of us!" They treated us to a mix of bluegrass, Cajun, punk, and Irish musical styles with real verve and some entertaining in-between song moments on the microphone. So these guys got the day off to a really good start, accompanied of course, by that lovely strawberry and lime scrumpy that was on tap in the bar.

A short walk to the other side of the arena to the Festival Eye tent to watch guitar aficionado Chris Woods, who used every part of his instrument to produce a note, a beat, a click or some sounds that only onomatopoeia can describe! It was good to see Rodney Branigan watching intently from the front row. Chris' music was mostly instrumental and each track told a musical story, which he thoughtfully relayed to us before playing.

Aziz in full flow...

After a casual roam around the site, stopping to take in poetry and other musicians, we headed for the real ale tent where ex Stone Roses guitar maestro Aziz was about to take to the stage; Aziz has played at several previous acoustic festivals and for some reason I've always missed him previously, so made sure I got a good perch this year, and I wasn't in anyway disappointed.

Backed, only by another guy on the bongos, he played an amazing set, literally melting the frets and dishing out some heavy rock meets India licks, riffs and even playing with his teeth.
With more pedals than the Blackpool Tower Wurlitzer he produced an incredible variety of sounds in his too short set; as for the percussion - I've never seen lead bongos before. Inspirational.

His own material was punctuated with a little bit of Stone Roses magic and if you wanted a visual clue to how good Aziz was, then you only needed to see the line of people queuing up to buy his CD. If you get the chance to see him live, then do it.

A packed real ale tent

A tough act to follow, so a little dazed, I did the arena mooch and cherry picked at what was going on in some of the other tents - poetry, shimmy dancers (not to my taste!) and more and more musicians. Chilled in the sun, people watched and browsing the wares of the traders, and did what one's supposed to do at a festival like this: relax. It's not hectic or manic, but may be a little soporific and a sense of drowsiness takes over. Or maybe that's the cider!

Taking in some food from the selection of outlets, all offering food over and above the quality you'd expect from a festival; the chick pea curry from The Furnace is particularly recommended.

Finally at 5pm it was time for the inimitable Mike Peters of The Alarm; I've seen Mike a number of times in various venues and he never fails to give a good show, he has a certain charm and none of the rock and roll posturing of some with his back catalogue. Just Mike, a guitar, harmonica, a stage and several hundred people enjoying great acoustic music in the sun.  He does a live performance exactly how it should be done - to please the crowd.

A brief sojourn back to base camp for a snack and a drink then we were fortified for the evening session, kicked off by Squeeze's Glen Tilbrook who always appears to be having a whale of a time when on stage and today's performance was no exception. The crowd seem to buzz of his enthusiasm and it loops back in a feedback fashion leading to an awesome performance. Saturday's final act on the Main Stage was Joan Armatrading, a performer for longer than I can remember who put an immaculately performed set together and wowed the festival goers. For me after 14 hours sitting in the sun this was enough and I retired to my tent for a good 10 hour kip, while the others partied on 'til close.

The author prepares breakfast!

Day Three
Wide awake and sat bolt upright, fresh as a daisy at 07:41, I poked my head out of the tent on yet another beautiful sunny morning, and wondered what time the rest of the planet would be surfacing. No, matter I sat outside the tent reading in the morning warmth for a good couple of hours and then decided to go on the hunt for breakfast provisions.

There's a 24 hour camp shop on site, but I the hunter gatherer in me wanted to go a little further afield, so checking I could get back in again, I left the racecourse and about 20 minutes later I came across the local Tesco store and stocked up on a few other bits and bobs whilst there. Imagine being able to do this at V or Leeds. No chance!

The mighty hunter returns and another leisurely al fresco breakfast is prepared and devoured, once more while poring over the programme, for Sunday's big finale. As the last of the bacon was sizzling The Animals could be heard on the breeze, playing their numerous hits - you see, at this festival you don't miss out even if you're still back at base...

The festival takes place within the grounds of
Uttoxeter Racecourse

Arriving at the arena in time to catch the House of The Rising Sun as The Animals last song, we got a good seat in the real ale tent just in time to catch T-Rex tribute T-Rextacy who got the whole tent up and grooving to hit after hit, performed of course, acoustically. Following T-Rextacy were one of the acts I was really keen to watch and was on my list of do-not-miss-under-any-account bands. It was Danny and Ben from rock band Thunder.

I wasn't quite prepared for Thunder's set I have to say, and can only describe them as probably (for me at least) the most entertaining hour of the whole festival. Mixing stories and jokes with their music and a hilarious inclusion of the audience in their cover of The Beatles' Blackbird, they gave the crowd a damn good time. Covers of the Who, Elvis and more were all performed with a bit of a glint in the eye and a tongue firmly in the cheek.
There wasn't one person that didn't leave the tent with a smile on their face, I don't recall them trying to plug a CD either! Danny and Ben owned that stage.

At this point we'd decided to pack up and head back at the close of the night, so it was back to the campsite to strike camp and load the car up, before returning to Acousticville for the final acts of a great weekend.

Weather takes the stage

All the way from Los Angeles for the second year running was female vocalist and guitarist Weather, who's petite frame belies the power and tone of the voice that erupts from her, backed by her pithy, rhythmic strumming on the 3/4 sized guitar, which gives a bright crisp tone. Unfortunately her biog was omitted from the programme and I don't know if this contributed to the small number of people watching, which was a shame as you missed out. Weather might not be everyone's cup of tea, but you can't help get wrapped up in the passion, energy and raw emotion that she packs into her set.

Following this we caught the end of Gandalf Murphy's slot - a bit like Pink Floyd took acid with a blue grass band and this was the result. Entertaining, indeed! Then it was time to sit and appreciate someone who's probably played to crowds of tens of thousands during his time as guitarist for the Scorpions - Uri Jon Roth had the audience in the real ale tent with his own compositions and covers of the likes of Hendrix. I could see a few old heads, nodding and swaying in a trance like state. All I can say is that I was blown away - awesome guitar skills, Uri makes it look so easy and effortless.

It was now time to find a space in front of the main stage for Katrina, of The Waves fame, the final main stage act of the festival.

She started her show by thanking Adrian Nation for lending her his guitar, as she'd managed to lock hers, and her keys in her own car! She then candidly announced that the band had never played acoustically before this gig, and the band themselves were really pleased about how it sounded and how it turned out.

Walking on Sunshine sounded very different, but fresh, alive and vibrant - a new direction for them, who knows, but they wanted to come back next year if they were invited. Let's hope they do get an invite, and that their set isn't cut short next time. I'm not sure what happened, but half way through the last song, Katrina informed us that she had to cut the set short, mildly annoying for the audience, and undoubtedly frustrating for the artists. I'm sure there was a reason, and these festivals must be a mission to organise, and this one gets better every year, so I can forgive that minor slip up!

That was it, there were a few more acts on the smaller stages, but we decided to head off and leave Uttoxeter once more.

So to summarise the essence of this fantastic little festival: random, varied, characters a plenty, relaxed, talent, sunshine, happy, uncommercialised, quality. Do not miss it next year!!

A Day At The Micro Brewery

As a keen consumer of beer since being about 16 years of age, I have recently had my interest in real ales rekindled. After the slow, early 90s death of cask conditioned beers I switched almost exclusively to Guinness - a drink I love, especially in comparison to the blandness of 'smoothflow' keg bitters and the even blander and ubiquitous Carling lager. I still would drink a real ale whenever I came across one, but the pubs and bars I usually frequented didn't offer them.

Gradually though, I was aware of the renaissance of real ale production, particularly in the micro-brewery sector and the availability of these beers in my local Wetherspoons, in some variety. Wetherspoons wasn't my favourite watering hole at the time, but I made the odd trip, just for the exceedingly well kept real ales.

Hot liquor, mash tun and Copper (r-l)

Then the brewery, round the corner, at Blakemere - The Northern Brewing Company - started to sell its beers through my local The Old Star and the real ale thirst was once again revived. I have a long connection with Blakemere in general, and through a mutual friend I got to know the guys at the brewery some years ago. Their beers are also regular guest ales in the local Wetherspoons and more and more this chain pub became my local, and now I find myself supping proper beer in there several times a week.

Chatting to my friend Paul, the brewer at Northern Brewing Company over a beer one afternoon, he invited me to come and have a 'brew day' and make 1500 pints of a real ale, next time I was off work. I agreed to this in a nanosecond and arranged the day.

Brew Day
Seven twenty in the morning, I arrive at the brewery as agreed and it's a case of getting stuck straight in; everything in the brewing of real ales is time sensitive and has to be done in a strict order according to the recipe. I was making Blakemere Gold today.

Mashing in.

The first task was 'mashing in' - or mixing the correct amount of malted barley with hot liquor (water) and ensuring it is thoroughly stirred in, bending over the mash tun with a specially designed paddle, stirring a 'porridge' that gets thicker and heavier as each bag of malted barley is poured in. At 7:30am, this is a real wakener!

This mix is left in the mash tun at a carefully monitored temperature for an hour, steeping. The process is undertaken at the optimum temperature for extracting the natural sugars from the malt.
After the allotted time has elapsed, the sugary liquid is drained off into the copper. This sweet tasting liquor is known as strong wort, I filled a cup from the copper and it was very much like an Ovaltine without the milk, naturally sweet and known in the trade as 'brewer's breakfast'.

Digging the used malt out of the mash tun

Once the malt is nearly dry, a process called sparging commences; a consistent shower of hot water is evenly laid over the top of the barley in the tun, to extract the remaining malty sugars. Sparging continues until the copper is full, and ready for the next phase of this ancient operation. What surprised me was that at no point was any sugar added - all the sweetness, the food for the yeast, was obtained from the barley - completely natural. The original gravity of the strong wort is measured using a hydrometer, this gives an accurate measure of just how much sugar is in the mix, a key to calculating the alcohol content once the beer is ready.

The bittering hops are added to the wort in the copper, and the massive heating element is fired up to bring the mix to the boil, and to keep it boiling for about an hour. The hops added at this stage are chosen to control just how bitter the taste of the final brew will really be.

Adding the aroma hops

Meanwhile the back breaking job of digging out the barley from the mash tun has to be done, these sweet tasting husks are are the only bi-product of the brewing and are collected by a farmer for animal feed, that's providing an opportunistic magpie doesn't eat them all first.

It's time for a mug of tea and a breather while the contents of the copper bubble away, the hoppy, malty aroma is almost intoxicating in itself and no alcohol has been produced yet!

The final step whilst the wort is still in the copper is to add, for this recipe anyway, the aroma hops, and stir them in so they're all soaked and infusing the brew with their wonderful perfume.

The fermenter

After the boiling has finished the resulting liquor is cooled down using a heat exchanger to around 24 degrees and the golden coloured, fragrance laden liquid is transferred to the fermenter, ready for the addition of yeast; then it is left in a temperature controlled environment for the yeast to work its magic. As the brew starts to leisurely ferment (each bubble produced corresponds to some alcohol) the less than relaxing task of digging out and cleaning the copper has to be done, while it's still steaming. It's like a hoppy sauna in there, and luckily brewer, Paul, took pity on me and undertook this job.

It's now about 1:30pm and I'm pretty exhausted - there's a lot of hard work and effort that goes in to making a craft beer, a true real ale. So as a thank you, I cooked up one of my favourite bar snacks - currywurst - and we finished the shift with sausages, a glass of one of their bottle conditioned beers and retired to Wetherspoon's for a pint, or two.

Next - the tasting!