Wednesday 29 January 2020

On the Dray

Scenic views en route to Danby


In recent times due to the absence of certain staff it has fallen upon me to play the honorable roll of dray man. This has involved ventures out to far away lands such as Cramlington, Sunderland, Hartlepool, Darlington, Richmond, Boroughbridge, Whixley, Knaresborough and even the Toon.

In the drop zone

With it being about eight years since I was let loose in a van it was good to re-visit the basics. So after the sat nav's landed you within a 50 yard radius of the pub its time to exit the vehicle to find the actual pub then work out where to actually put the beer. Planning a dray run seems easy, until you factor in certain venues opening/closing at certain times. Then rush hour traffic and the van's weight limits.

Saying goodbye: the cellar is the beers' final destination


The dray man can be the eyes and ears of the brewery concerning direct customer relations. You also get to develop skills at manoeuvreing casks around tight cellars whilst routing out empties. I've often thought the roll would be great portrayed in a video game in the style of Grand Theft Auto (North Yorkshire). Virtual Dray Man 3: 'Drop Zone 2020' would feature variable Dray men first character options (as well as unlockable bonus dray men past and present). It would cover various theatres of distribution including South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Tyneside, Darlington, Ripon and many more where you can gain points for collecting empties and not getting caught in the bus lane. The idea might need more work before before going to major game producers.

Thursday 9 January 2020

Key Lime Wheat


Key Lime Wheat is key lime pie influenced wheat beer featuring lime zest, oats and lactose. The first Daleside new release of 2020 it's a soft, sessionable, American style wheat with citric notes at 3.8%.

Lime zest 

As it happens Key Lime Wheat started its life in the 80 litre trial kit as I has never brewed one before. The inspiration came from desserts. Key Lime Pie is one of the greatest desserts on Earth alongside Sticky Toffee Pudding, Banoffee Pie, Baklava and obviously the cheese board.

Hops going in. Took some concentration to get this pic holding the phone in the other hand.

An entertaining brew day. Some judgement was required in the upscaling of ingredients. Often it's found X grams of ingredient Y for a 20 to 80 litre trial brew, when it's then multiplied up by so many thousand litres (for the commercial kit) gives an over the top number. Nonetheless I'm pleased with this one. Having ventured into brewing territory I don't usually enter I found this to have a better drinkability than I originally thought for a speciality beer.