Back With A, Err, Ermm, Well, Errr, Something Mildy Interesting. Probably....

Ooh, would you look at that. It's been a month since the last blog, or whatever it's called. And I'm still not sure what to post.

I could say the previously discussed Hobby we have sighted may have been a juvenile Peregrine, according to some observers. I could mention a couple of new beers we have put out - 'Western Harrier', 'Blink Bonny' & the originally titled 'Dark' (hang on, that's three isn't it - sorry). I could even talk at length about various insects observed by the pond. But to be honest, I won't.

What I will say is that we now have the casks to sustain a more regular and intensive brewing schedule, which is keeping us busy, and as a result, and not before time, we are now three. We have been joined by our first employee, Basil. Basil has brewing experience, and is also a fully qualified herbalist - which I suspect may be another unique point in our favour. So I really must get about updating, nay including, a section on the website about the faces behind the beer. It may even make interesting reading...

Since the last post, a few more areas of the country have been flooded, although thankfully for us not round here (it remains to be seen what effects there will be on the hop & barley harvest, but fingers crossed all will be OK). But summer seems to be with us at the moment, and beer sales are for us still on an upwards trend. It seems to be the same for many of the other breweries we have contact with, despite some very downbeat feelings from publicans. The truth I guess is that many smokers are still spending less time drinking, which is affecting pub figures. Statistically though, smokers are more likely (so we are told) to be lager drinkers, so cask sales haven't been hit too hard - indeed it seems that what new trade there is in pubs is mostly folks who have a taste for 'bitters', and are keener to try something new. Again, this is good news for the small producers, and bad news for the big, over-hyped mass produced 'brands'. Which might explain why, as ever, small brewers are always 'bucking the trend' of national sales figures (small brewers sales aren't included in industry statistics...).

The downside of increasing sales is of course that in the short term the cash flow gets screwed up a bit, but hey-ho, this is part of business life. Of course it does hurt to see the cheques to the revenue increasing massively, but that is just relative - it's all based on money coming in, so in many ways it is a good sign.

The current bit of good news is that we have had a meeting with the local licencing officer, and any fears re high costs of getting a full alcohol/entertainment licence are seemingly unfounded. So a couple of hours of form filling (umpteen copies of which are to be sent to the world, his dog, and the dog's two mates), and 28 days of notices & adverts later, we might at last be able to sell to the public from the brewery door. All of which we were allowed to do under the old licencing rules...

One of the main concerns of the licence application revolves around protecting society from the harms of alcohol, and how we plan to do this. Well, it's simple really. For a start we won't be selling anything at a ridiculously low below cost price, and therefore encouraging folk to get cheaply drunk before going out. What's that, someone suggesting large supermarket chains are behaving irresponsibly, with impunity? Surely not. Whatever next...