Brewery Chickens

Just a few yards from the Brewery is the home of the Lucas chicken flock. The girls of the flock are a key part of the domestic economy here. They provide a fairly steady supply of superior quality eggs, and keep the vegetable garden supplied with manure. In addition to their basic diet of layer's pellets, they get all the green waste, be it weeds, vegetable trimmings, gone to seed lettuces, whatever. They also get all the spent grain from the brewery, and they go mad for it. I see the brewery, the poultry, the garden all as part of the same system. Poultry and brewing are a good fit.

Introductions

This is a blog about a small home craft brewery in rural Fife. Two generations of the Lucas family are involved: myself, Richard Lucas and my son Douglas. We brew on equipment that in the main dates from my start in brewing in the 1970s. A trusty 1976 Burco act as our boiler, and we use an elderly Bruheat as a source of hot liquor. We mash in a newer device made by Douglas - it's basicically a tap equipped fermenting vessel with a false bottom and added insulation that started life as a camper's thermal bedroll.. Douglas has also made a wort chiller that is a coil of 10mm copper tubing, a most excellent device.

We like to experiment with our beer. We like to use off-beat ingredients, we have a Tracle stout and a Walnut Brown Ale in the fermenters now. We don't try to equal commercial brews, because we know we can do better - we don't have accountants trying to shave costs from our recipes.

We look forward to sharing a few thoughts, swapping recipes, and having a chat here.