This baby business tends to slow things down, even if I'm just the support crew, but I've managed to get back to brewing and even on the way to making some enough room in the garage to fit a brewing system into.

I've managed to get two brews in the last month or so: AG#12 was a return to Miracle on 8th Street as mentioned previously and was a qualified success. A simple grain bill of Maris Otter and Munich Malt and a combination of Summit and Cascade at IPA levels of hopping produces a lovely beer, but I aimed for US IPA strengths of around 6% and ended up, using Neale's NBS ale yeast, at 4.4%. At first I blamed the yeast, with a possible contributing factor of the variable temperature of my fermenting room (study), but having looked at my recipe in Beersmith again, it did indeed say two packets of the yeast rather than the usual one, which goes to show that you should pay attention to every detail. To that end I've bought a few different Fermentis and Danstar packs to see what works for what I want to make. However as this has happened twice I think Miracle might remain as an American Pale Ale rather than a American IPA.

For AG#13 I revisited standard bitter. I've been planning this for what seems like ages, and finally settled on a dark variation with dark crystal and pale chocolate malt and Challenger and Golding hops for something that should be very English and very traditional. I used Danstar Nottingham yeast (and double checked the recipe), turned off the heating in the study and all being well, I should have a batch of what I've called Airedale bitter in the next week or so.

Next up will be an experimental pale for a barbecue in June (I haven't been asked, but it will be our contribution along with the two eight packs of veggie burgers as someone always decides they like them better than the meat) which I'm going to finally play with some other hops for as it seems like I've got a bit stuck with my Goldings and Cascade although this might just be something almost as traditional as I probably shouldn't get too out there for a party. Then a return to stout, and then, well, like a lot of other brewers I'm getting rather excited by the experimental hops that Charles Faram have introduced so will be having a bit of play with them, even if, like everyone else, I end up with a small collection of single hopped IPAs, which if nothing else, should make for some interesting cocktails.