Heated

The brewery shop has a scattergun model of retailing. A lot of beer, of course, along with a reasonable selection of wines, spirits, liqueurs and cider. Only the beer is produced here. Then there is some merchandising - beermats, bottle openers, decorations and so on plus some clothes items with brewery logo. Then it strays some way from its core purpose: preserves, pickles etc (one or two with added beer); local honey; cheeses (maybe one with hops), ham, pies. Then one or two very unexpected items: bread flour and, the reason for my visit, eggs! - on an open tray - fill your own box. Do people on a brewery visit impulse-buy pick-your-own eggs, or are there enough locals like MrsM and me - who just know - to keep the sales going? 

At the risk of over-exposing the brewery, the weather did create a fairly dramatic scene as I was leaving. This could be the subsequent stage for the batch that began its journey under the lights in yesterday's early dawn picture. I think that what is happening here is that the wort - the liquor that has been strained off the malted barley with which it has been mixed ('mashed') for some time - is now in some large copper kettles inside this building and being boiled as a range of different dried hops are added at precise, pre-determined times during the boil

Of course, this vapourises some of the water, which escapes through louvres in the building. On days like today - almost zero degrees, the air completely saturated with water vapour, and blustery breeze swirling around the building (conditions that create a typically British kind of energy-sapping cold) - the hot vapour from inside the building hitting the cold, saturated air outside immediately creates a cloud of thick, billowing steam. The process goes on periodically all year - sometimes in summer we only smell it (Ovaltine!) rather than see it, but it's hard to miss today

War-drums and angry, vengeful voices have become an everyday presence, but the familiar rituals of daily life offer some balance