Oh boy has it been hot, very hot. If we were all on holiday on a Greek island it’s exactly what we’d want it to be, but working in it is a different issue altogether. When we get hot we can get a bit feisty, impatient and maybe short tempered and maybe deviate from the norms of behaviour that are normally expected. What is this you’re asking, some sort of cod psychology essay.
Well no because I told you that to tell you this. Traditional English beers are live and cask conditioned and contain yeast, and you know yeast can get feisty too when ambient temperatures are higher than normal. I’ve noticed many beers in pubs recently that have a slight haze on them, and Uley is no exception, especially as we, as traditional brewers transfer direct from fermenter to cask. We call this haze ‘glass clear’. The real issue is that the beer is taking longer to drop once delivered to a pub cellar. We have been proud to say that our beers will usuallly drop in 2 or 3 hours but at the moment it’s 2 or 3 days.
What folk really want to know is, is drinking beer with a haze on it bad for you, will you end up with the dreaded ‘back door trot’. Well, more and more beer (and cider) is being produced unfiltered and there is no problem with that. Bad beer will oxidize very quickly once exposed to air and you will know in moments if there is something wrong with it. We have had no issues with aroma, taste or flavour and that is the barometer of good beer. So just get it down you, I say. It’s just a little slow getting bright at the moment. But hey, we’re all a little slower in this heat. But heatwaves never last…well not at the moment anyway..
Ken Lush. (Head Brewer)
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