I realised last night that I haven't been updating my progress on this blog much, so here we are...

I haven't really tested my beer on anyone else except my brother in law yet, and he's been very polite about it. As a whole they've worked pretty well, although the first few all grain brews all suffered from sub-3% ABVs when I was at least trying to reach the high 3 point somethings. They tasted like beer though, which is a win in itself. I've binned all but one of the first extract brew and I'm keeping one as a monument to my folly.

Challenger (AG#1 and AG#2), the bitter I made as a cask and bottled, was a decent attempt at a bitter. Electric Light (AG#3) was a good attempt at a hoppy blonde. Both are drinkable, which gave me the confidence to go on. Nightwatchman (AG#4) was an acceptable attempt at a stout although it's proving to be a bit too dry and rough even after two months in the bottle.  Miracle on 8th Street (AG#5) was my first and only go at an American IPA so far and has proved to be very good, even if the combination of Summit and Cascade can be a bit of a strange one, and I actually enjoy drinking it. Returning to bitters, Royal Cafe (AG#6) ended up rather too chocolatey but is drinkable, but not to my mind a bitter. With a bit of retooling it would make a good mild. The Golden Age, AG#7 isn't quite a candidate for a production blonde as it's turned out a little too bitter, but after much thinking and tasting similar beers I think the next attempt will be more of what I'm trying to get to. The last couple of brews, AG#8 and AG#9 are conditioning and fermenting respectively for Christmas and what's going to happen after.

In the next couple of weeks, Celebration Ale will be moved to secondary tomorrow then bottled next week, and I'm planning another brew, hopefully one day this week, of either a bitter or a blonde that I've been thinking a lot about since the first two.

As I've said before, we will be having a baby in January, so I'm expecting to be all hands to the tiller to welcome our child into the world for a few months, but then providing everything is OK and we haven't been drained of all our savings and I'm getting more than five minutes sleep a night, I'm going to start thinking about turning this fiddling into something more rewarding. A small, more professional setup that once I've got the hang of it, will enable me to register as a brewery and start selling the beers that I'm proud of. My Twitter icon says 'New Pudsey Brewing Concern', which was the first idea for a name simply because many breweries are geographically monikered and despite living on the wrong side of the Stanningley bypass, it's still LS28, and New Pudsey railway station is just around the corner. However, there's also much to be said for not being held to a place and other names are being considered. Breweries are often named for other variables in the local environment, and as I work from home in the proper job, something I see a lot of is our spaniel, Mabel. I'm still just beginning really.