R.E.S.P.E.C.T

What's up? Covered some miles this week - began it in Scotland, been to St Alban's Beer Festival, been in London and in-between managed to clock >50hrs here and still counting!  But when you love what you do - can you really call it work? We're going to take a full on bar at St Alban's Beer Festival next year. It's time! 

Respect? This is our new session seasonal. A little bit of lateral thinking to get you to the name/pump clip. The hop we are using is Godiva - this is pretty (but not entirely) unusual as a hop. Other more witty than us genius-like beings had already really pushed the boat out and used the names of Lady Godiva and such - so we though Godiva - Diva .... Ooo who is an ultimate Diva in the vocalist (not the dramatist) sense?... and went with Aretha... R.E.S.P.E.C.T.! This lovely is only 4% and is fruity, not just on the nose, but I get blackberries and cherry mid/back palate, and it has a super dry finish. We made a lot, but my guess is it won't hang about... 

Otherwise, I had a look at all the seasonals (means we brew about 5-10x as much of them as we do a special) and specials to see what had worked and what hadn't. The data is not helpful. They all worked! Well almost...

The one that isn't on there because it was all kegged was the experimental Dark Side of the Moon - dark pilsner - this didn't really sell when we launched it. Ho-hum thinks me, and I was [still am!] exploring making it into Whiskey - but now it is popular in our tap-room so who knows? Anyway, the data below FWIW. You know what sells in your place but interesting to see the variety out there. 

This data is accurate but maybe a wee bit misleading - because we have not had Sundown for a couple of weeks (we do now)... Also, whilst it looks the least, well it is mathematically - we've sold more than 3x as much Pressed Rat this year as any other year. Yum! 

What's On? Long list... 

Nothing Else Matters (almost gone)

Stairway (going quite fast)

Comfortably Numb (down to our last 40 casks)

What's about? Will keep this short as don't want to get ranty and loads above here as well, and we are generally not political as a principle - unless the politics are about beer.  In this case they are and we really, really don't like the government tone on pint sizes, outdoor smoking areas (don't most of us control this already?) and the risk to duty in the budget. Do you think our politicians appreciate that communities with pubs are the happiest communities? If they do, you'd hope they'd extrapolate back a bit and make sure hospitality is well catered for... Talk about clearing the gloom? Well, let's have a party! Chance would be a fine thing but hope springs eternal! I think we should commission a study on mental health state of the nation correlated with pub closures... anyhoo

Hope you have a cracker of a weekend, and maybe we can bring you some fabulous beer next week - hoping the sun shines Saturday and this helps sales.... 

Xen

P.S.

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman each placed a bid for a big government construction job.

"I'll do it for 30 million," said the Englishman. "How is that figure broken down?" asked the civil servant in charge of the scheme. "10 million for the labour, 10 million for the materials and 10 million for me," said the Englishman.

The Irishman was called in next and said, "I'll do the job for 60 million. That's 20 million for the labour, 20 million for the materials and 20 million for me."

"Right," said the Scotsman who found out the Englishman's bid. "My bid is for 90 million. That's 30 million for you, 30 million for me, and we'll give the other 30 million to the Englishman to do the job."

And on Respect...

There’s a few things people respect about me... I have a heart of a lion and .... a lifetime ban at the zoo

I respect giraffe’s…They’re an animal I can look up to.

Sorry not sorry - have a great weekend, X