![April Skies or an April fool? [yeah, I know it is October]](http://triplefff.com/cdn/shop/articles/lg_april_fools_shutterstock_1045783252.jpg?v=1761323837&width=300)
April Skies or an April fool? [yeah, I know it is October]
Oct 24, 2025
What's up? I was driving to work this morning and listening to Jesus and Mary Chain's "April Skies" and it made me wonder if we'd missed a trick with the names of our seasonals and specials... I mean we could have "October" [U2 but other variants obvs], "November Rain" [GNR] or "Gone til November" [Wyclef Jean], "Back to December" [more cheerful stuff from Taylor S!], "January Friend" [Goo-goo Dolls], "February Stars" [Foo Fighters], "March" [Deacon Blue]... OK, I'll shut up, and yes we already have enough variety on offer but fun to be creative in the beer world. We always love your ideas for beer names along our musical theme... and you never know so do feed them to us when you are inspired!
Otherwise, officially our 7th best week of the year - things ramping up nicely for silly season. Feedback from Trade in a nutshell is that it isn't too bad, but what is frustrating is how hard to predict it is. From folks running out of food ingredients on a Tuesday because they were swamped to the odd Friday being worse than a Wednesday - but at least the general consensus is upbeat!
In our Tap Room it was business as usual... if questionable that Pork Scratchings makes it to the top 10 products! Can't believe there are some in Council Planning who say we are more than a Tap Room - especially when you look at these top 10 products which are way over 90% Triple fff... but there you go.
What's On?
This week I have drunk - Pride (singing), Moondance (super polished) and just sampling a small amount of WMA - which is so moreish as is still slightly more bitter than it will be in a week's time. Haven't had a Sundown yet but might have a half in the Tap Room before heading home.
What's about? We had our grist mill serviced this week - still in great nick - these things last a long time - apparently Otter has the first one ever produced and we're early edition guys ourselves. You'd think when you make a such a high quality proiduct as an Alan Ruddock Mill, you might have a messed up business model as folks only need one every 50 years... but apparently new business is pretty good in.... Scotland. Super interesting (to a geek like me) when you think of this... Trump smacks tariffs on-> Whisky takes a beating-> there is a pig in the python to digest (so to speak) and an excess of malt in Scotland ->... and breweries start springing up. As an industry smaller breweries are generally truly appalling at long term planning but this struck me as particularly opportunistic and not a tale that will end well for everyone. That said I do quite like a bit of the microbrewery stuff coming out of Scotland, so let the winners be grinners!
We've got some terrific variety and some terrific beer on the go and you're going to need plenty of beer for next week - be it dressing Moondance up as spoooookyyyy - or getting Comfortably Numb to avoid the Halloween and then bonfire night pain ... so very much hope we can bring you some.
In the meantime, have a terrific weekend.
Xen
P.S.
Halloween jokes tend to really suck... you know "why didn't the skeleton go trick or treating?" "it didn't have the guts" - that sort of malarky ... not for me - even for me that is too far in dad-ville/christmas cracker-ville...
Can't do much better... so when I usually say "sorry, not sorry" this week I am errr "sorry""
Someone asked if my house was haunted... I said "only by my worst decisions"... and meanwhile the ghost in my mirror no longer scares me - we both accepted how things turned out...
Sorry!
Bon weekend, X
