The Pint Dinosaur

Beers that I serve or try in and around the Reading Area. I work at The AleHouse in Reading

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I'm a happy prospector

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My friend recently started up a beer/brewing YouTube channel. I took a trip to his house to help him on the brew day and was a lot of fun.

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Another day at the festival this time was spent doing beer checking to see if it had settled out yet and ready for people to drink. We also have to fix a leaky line for one of the bars hand pulls. Been a cracking couples of days but my working at the festival has come to a close and I am now just a regular punter, with staff tokens

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Delivery day of Reading beer Festival 2016 Over 600 beers delivered and racked onto stillage, we started at 9am and finished 12 hours later with all the beer sitting on the stillage waiting to be drunk. We ended the day with a few beers in the staff tent feeling very chuffed. I managed to walk 20,000 steps and personally moved 300+ casks around, my body aches. Back to the pub tomorrow however

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So 5 months ago I joined the 21st century version of scooping like the old boys used to do, but at least a million times easier, as untappd makes it basically effortless.

I did this in secret so I could check in more beers than my friend and it only took me a month.

Now I continue to do it as a way to expand my tastes and try a lot of new things and keep a record of what a like to give me ideas on my own brews.

Granted I can check in a huge amount running a pub with 9 hand pubs and 3 keg lines, only a slight advantage.

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The advantage to working at a pub is I can get a whole bunch of bottles to use in my home brew bottling and save a lot of money.

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So I finally did an all grain brew after wanting to for so long, I brewed a Banoffee Stout. I thought for my first one very not make it a very experimental one, which I've had the idea for around five months. So after getting my delivery of ingredients from www.themaltmiller.com and few small things in town I was ready to do. So I got my grist all setup and ready for mashing which consisted of: Golden Promise Flaked Barley Roasted Barley Cafara II Got my strike water to 75 Celsius and then mashed into my new spangled mash tun, after the addition of the grist the temperature dropped to 66 Celsius, I left that for an hour. Next stage sparging, I use a technique my friend JD showed me which is effective and easy for the small batches I work with. Basically you run off all the water in the mash tun then full up with your sparge water then drain that off, it saves so much time compared to conventional sparging and has a good efficiency rate. You'll notice in the sparge I added some dried banana chips, this is my first addition of these. Then came the boiling which took longer than I wad expecting but you know how it is large body of water will take some time to heat up. I added in my bittering hops, for this I just used target, along side this I also added in one and a half tins of lyle's golden syrup for the sweetness I want to associate with toffee. Ten minutes from the end I added some Irish moss to help flocculation, and on flame out I added my second addition of banana chips, I left that sit while I setup my least prepared system wort chilling. I basically just filled the bath with cold water and waited for the work to get to a cold enough temp to pitch the yeast it took 2 hours so I need a better method. OG reading of 1.050 lower than I was expecting but will still be a nice ABV. I used mangroves bavaian wheat yeast to help promote the banana esters I'm after, this is the thing I'm not sceptical about but that's brewing it's all experimenting to find the perfect combo.

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Been at a beer festival, no real standout beer unfortunately. But the beer I drank the most was the south Hams black and white. Which is a milk stout. Was fairly bitter for a milk stout and lacked in body which didn't make it a proper milk stout. But I still had an interesting evening despite flexing my knowledge

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So I’ve finally made the leap to all grain brewing, after not having enough money for ages and now being assistant manager at the pub I can make lavish purchases.

I will brew my first all grain beer on Monday I’m keeping it fairly lock and key on what it is but all shall be revealed

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So I’ve finally made the leap to all grain brewing, after not having enough money for ages and now being assistant manager at the pub I can make lavish purchases.

I will brew my first all grain beer on Monday I’m keeping it fairly lock and key on what it is but all shall be revealed

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Another stillage that I set up and racked beer onto. Should be a good beer festival at my pub

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So at the end of November last year myself and the Reading Real ale society went to the local brewery Sherfield Village and did a collaboration brew. Was a very fun and labour intensive day, which consisted of moving casks, grains and measuring out hops. Also drinking a few pints of beer and ordering pizza to the brewery. But the fruits of our toil have paid off and the first cask of 'midnight Oil' is now on sale in my very pub. It's a lovely 5% stout lovely malt aroma and hints of a chocolate flavour, with a smooth finish. I hope this is the start of me brewing in other breweries, I've already been invited to brew with Wild Weather, which could be an awesome experience

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Gyle 59 NIPA Nettle IPA 5.3%

It's been a long while since I've had a nettle beer and I must say that Gyle 59 have done it spot on, Even with Gyle's unique beer process of only using organic ingredients and no finings this beer is surprisingly clear, also making thus beer vegan friendly. The nettle flavour is very present at the tip of your tongue then the classic bitterness of the IPA hits the back of your throat. Perfect sunshine beer

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Bingham’s show case

These Bingham’s beers came and went through the pub that I work at

Berkshire Bee 5%

This golden beer uses locally sourced honey (the head brewers own aprirary) with a sweet aroma and subtle sweetness at the end of a sip this refreshing beer is a nice new addition to the popular Bingham’s range

Vanilla Stout 5%

personally one of my favourite stouts going, with nice malt flavour the touch of vanilla makes this a cracking pint and is massively popular with locals

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On the weekend just gone (13th June) I attended the Twyford beer festival with other members of the Reading university real ale society.

This was the 6th festival of this annual beer festival smaller than usual due to a change of site but still I lovely festival.

Up to 30 real ales avaliable and also real cider and wine.

The festival raises money for the orchid charity Which fights male cancer so always a good cause.

The beers that made my festival were

Bingham’s Vanilla Machiatto Stout

Lovely stout with vanilla leading a nice coffee flavour. I would probably like it more if I actually liked coffee but I still enjoyed it

Saltaire Triple Chocolate Stout

This very thick stout with a nice chocolatey after taste made a wonderful very much a festival beer

I enjoy going to this beer festival as it’s a small one you don’t get overwhelmed with a huge crowd. With very friendly volunteers great music and food.

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Thought I should show off the pub I work at.

The Ale House

Located in the center of town, listed as a pub since the 1600 starting off called The Cock Inn then The London Tavern then The Hobgoblin and finally The Ale House.

This old building was used to quench the thirst of travellers who stayed at what is now The George hotel across the street.

Decorated with all the pump clips of previous beers sold. With a tally of unique beers sold which is slowly approaching the 8,000 mark. With little booths in the back for more private drinking.

You certainly won’t find another pub like this in reading.

With a total of 9 hand pumps, 2 craft lines, 2 Lager lines, real cider, Perry and mead and to top it off an increasing bottle range you’re definitely bound to find something to drink.