Redwillow Brewery

Long time no update

Toby — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:05:20 +0000

Can’t believe how long it has been since I last put together an update for the blog, but life has a habit of getting away from you when you run your own company. In the time since the last update there have been quite a number of changes, but one that has made our lives considerably easier (although the transition period was chaos) was building an office at the brewery. Up until this point the main office was at the house, which meant we really never stopped working and myself and Caroline spent hours on the phone to each other each day catching up with what was going on. Getting broadband and phone installed was the usual British farce, but we got there eventually.

200th Brew Day is rapidly approaching and ideas for it are slowly coming together, but in essence it will be a beer we brew every 100 gyles, approx 7.2 -> 7.4% ABV and hopped with only a passing thought to commercial viability. I’ll publish an outline of the recipe once finalized.

SIBA Gold & Silver

Toby — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:17:48 +0000

On Thursday I attended the SIBA 2012 conference and was shocked and pleasantly surprised to find out that Wreckless won Gold in the Premium Bitters category and Silver in the Supreme Champion category, quite chuffed

Odd Week

Toby — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:37:29 +0000

Going to be a strange one this week, combination of mistaken ordering and piss poor planning has left me in the position of having no empty casks, no grain, 5 full FV’s and we have pretty much sold out of beer. In some respects it will be an unusually relaxing week from a brewing / sleep perspective, the majority of the effort being shouldered by Ben & Neil trying to collect casks from here, there and everywhere. The two Saisons are coming along nicely, just need a little more time to properly dry out, meet the brewer at the Pack Horse on Wednesday and SIBA conference on Thursday. Hopefully the new stock of bottle labels will arrive tomorrow and I can focus on getting the website shop open (assuming we have any bottles to sell).

Online shop

Toby — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 12:21:26 +0000

Merchant ID has finally come through, so with any luck the online shop will be up and running towards the end of the week, early next. The Saisons are bubbling away quite happily, in a week or two will be ready for release, good chunk of these will be going into bottle.

Saison 1

Toby — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:26:51 +0000

1st Saison tasting good, this yeast is lovely

Busy week ahead

Toby — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:47:17 +0000

Two Saisons being brewed this week, both of which will go out under the Faithless range as 13 & 14 respectively. Ageless, Wreckless, Smokeless and Headless to bottle all before Tuesday which will be brutal. Trying to figure out how to cost effectively expand our production capacity, currently looking into getting a 12-14 Brl HLT, converting the current HLT into a second copper and getting a couple of 12 Brl FV’s plus a few conditioning tanks. All of which we should just about be able to fit in the current brew house. Additional outside storage has been ordered which will hopefully be with us before too long, but ideally we need to fit some decent office space into the brewery rather than have the split site we currently have. Casks as ever an issue, we are going to have to get more soon, which is always a fun drain on cash flow Our Merchant ID is almost through, so hopefully the online shop will be up and running in a week or two, only issue then is going to be stock

Couple of Meet the Brewers coming up soon

Toby — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:26:33 +0000

March the 7th at the Pack Horse in Macclesfield and April 4th at JP Joule in Sale

To state the blindingly obvious

Toby — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:34:52 +0000

We’ve finally got the website live, entirely my procrastination that has taken so long to get it to this point and I marvel at the patience of the chaps from ADOMedia. Shop will be coming shortly, a lovely logic circle enforced by my banks Merchant services devision, but hopefully this will now be fairly straightforward. ...Read the full article >>

Quick update on beer availability

Toby — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:01:01 +0000

Directionless is not going to be available this year as we’ve not got huge supplies of Amarillo in and are saving the hops for Wreckless.

Mirthless may make a brief reappearance but Simcoe is in very short supply

Heartless is running until the end of March as is Sleepless

Faithless XI is completely sold out bar 1 pin and I’m quite tempted to keep this for a while, however bottles will be available through BeerRitz / Beer Paradise

Saison Yeast is arriving this week, so expect to Saisons to be produced, let us know if you want them, they will be single runs as part of the Faithless range.

New website

Toby — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:13:53 +0000

Pretty much done, spent a few hours this morning proof reading etc. Hopefully be live next week. Shop will follow about 1-2 weeks later depending how many more hoops we have to jump through getting the Merchant ID sorted, I don’t miss IT

Baron of Ormskirk

Toby — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:41:24 +0000

The chaps have had a couple of beers to rate, 1st review up

http://www.theormskirkbaron.com/2012/01/redwillow-sleepless.html

More will follow no, some good, some not so

Hops

Toby — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:51:57 +0000

Going to be an interesting year this year, like most breweries, but my request for hops in back in September and this week have found out what I’ve been allocated, which is not surprisingly less than I needed. On the plus side, it does mean I get to experiment more