2011 at Gilston Spring

I thought it was time to look back over the year's brewing here. It's been fun, and not without its successes.

The brewing plant has been refined with the addition of a copper coil wort cooler. It's shortened the time required to brew a batch, and improved the clarity and soundness of the beer. Douglas and I will be looking to mash tun improvements in 2011 in continuation of these improvements.

We experimented a lot with ingredients this year. Treacle, oatmeal, walnuts and smoked malt are just some of the oddities that found their way into various brews. All were successful, and we will be repeating our Treacle Parkin Stout and our Walnut Wassail Brown. We learnt a lot about smoked malt in making our Auld Reekie ale, and it's an ingredient that we will use again. I think a hint of it in a stout or porter would be worthwhile, We also experimented a lot with New World hops and found a few new favourites.

I have two brews left to make this year, the Xmas brews. I'm planning a Sarah Hughes Ruby Mild style beer, and also a Best Bitter with a Bullion hop character. I'm going to try out a water treatment programme with the bitter. Our soft natural spring water brews a lovely dark beer, but is perhaps sub-optimal for lighter hoppy styles. So a hint of gypsum here, a dash of Epsom salts there is the order of the day. 2012 will see refinements to this process. We spent 2011 brewing dark characterful beers, 2012 is to be the year of hoppy light beers, with the idea of creating good tasty beers of rather lower ABV than the 2011 vintage. We want to get the best from our ingredients in brewing good session beers of 1035 - 1045 OG, rather than the 1050 - 1060 OG of 2011. Northern English and Scottish styles will be the foundation, but we might pretend to be Belgian or German everyone once in a while, and there will also be a place for North American styles and hops in this brewery. CAMRA meets Randy Mosher at the Gilston Spring Brewery is the mission statement.