I know that despite global turmoil, environmental disaster in the US, and Ferdinand’s knee going completely confit de canard, what you’ve really been worrying about in the last week is: ‘What new beer have Untapped been making?’
This may say more about my slightly obsessive, egomaniacal traits than anything else, but hey, no one’s perfect and I’m a hell of a cook, so it’s not all bad.
Well, I can now reveal that the lucky style of choice is…Stout. This may seem a little incongruous in the middle of summer, but by the time we see the results of the trial, do a full brew, condition it for a good long while and bottle it, it won’t be summer any more. If, indeed, we haven’t already seen the back of it.
The trial went well, fermented through efficiently and is currently being kept at 0 degrees for a couple of weeks to allow all the flavours to marry and blend nicely. We used a huge percentage of roasted and coloured malts, which smelt utterly wonderful when mashing in and have given the finished beer the intensely black colour that we were aiming for. When it finally gets to bottle, we’ll be taste testing it at all the regular markets, so that gives you yet another excuse to come and see us.
We’ve set ourselves a proper deadline this time to name the beast (for previous naming issues, just have a look at ‘And the nominations are…’) , but we are, as ever, open to suggestions. My other half suggested naming it after the dog as he’s a handsome black lab, which I thought was inappropriate until I realised she didn’t mean ‘Stop eating that, you miserable hound’…