The outdoor life

What’s this then? It’s a container with 600 litres of unfermented hopped wort that has been moved out into the yard. It’s going to have a bucket on the top and some gauze over the opening but crucially the lid is not going to be there. It’s dark in colour, as you might be able to see — Munich malt, caramalt, some roast barley, some wheat and some acid malt went into the mash tun earlier in the morning, plus some lactic acid. Hops included Simcoe, whose aroma as they waited in the hopback filled the air with their perfume. Unfermented? Yep. It’s going to be out in the yard for several months, a yard that is surrounded by farmland, so who knows who’ll pop by for a chat  (back in the brewery the rest of the brew that helped with is settling into the fermenting vessel, getting itself comfy with the three buckets of yeast that have just turned up at the front door and invited themselves in — we’re calling it a black gose, the wort tasted rather interesting, anyway back outside). That man is the foreground is Stuart Howe, head brewer at Sharp’s, and yes he’s playing with sour beer. Hurray!