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  1. Northern_Brewer

    Dry yeast recommendations for two brews

    There's no great dried English yeasts - a lot of the good ones don't like being dried, and the drying process tends to stress them so that they don't produce the esters that you want in a classic English pint. The cheapest option is to use the actual Fuller's yeast, by harvesting it out of a...
  2. Northern_Brewer

    Cashless pub.

    They can see on the till how much has been added to the raw bill, and generally they will have a personal login to the system so if tips are "tracked" per person, then it's easy to assign a tip to the person who rang in the bill. But most restaurants tend to operate some kind of communal "tronc"...
  3. Northern_Brewer

    Cashless pub.

    The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act comes into force on 1 July this year. The Ping Pong dimsum chain was one. OTOH, the minimum wage has increased dramatically in recent years, something like 60% above inflation compared to when it first came in, so at £11.44/hour it's not like we're in...
  4. Northern_Brewer

    Electric cars.

    If you've ever watched the Hunted TV show, they quite often prefer to use car telematics over phones - there can be uncertainty over who's using a phone, and potentially quite a bit of time-consuming analysis to identify a burner etc, whereas if they catch someone on CCTV getting into a...
  5. Northern_Brewer

    Cashless pub.

    All the American POS systems like Square are very geared to their tipping culture, so ask to add a tip by default, European systems handle it in different ways. But there's usually a tip jar on the bar to do cash....
  6. Northern_Brewer

    Hop plants/rhizomes - growing report

    https://essentiallyhops.co.uk/product/hops/grow-your-own-hops/redsells-eastwell/ Redsell's Eastwell is a Golding selection made at Tony Redsell’s (a local grower) farm in 1988 when Wye College was trying to find viroid free stock of all varieties. Eastwell is one of the classic Golding clones...
  7. Northern_Brewer

    Cashless pub.

    Although being broken into is a thing, a bigger thing is the losses from min wage staff trousering some of the takings. And it's not so much the bank charges, just all the hassle of handling cash - just counting it is a boring, time consuming task, but needs to be done by someone you can trust...
  8. Northern_Brewer

    Cashless pub.

    I can tell you exactly what happens - it doesn't make much odds. In general the card readers and tablets that run the tills are charged overnight, so should have enough battery to at least last a session. A lot of card readers talk directly to the mobile phone network so aren't dependent on...
  9. Northern_Brewer

    Cashless pub.

    The customer is wrong - the whole legal tender thing has a narrow meaning in the context of repaying debts, it's nothing to do with what happens in shops where a shop can choose whatever it wants to accept - cash only, card only, or peppercorns only...
  10. Northern_Brewer

    Brewdog boss James Watt steps down from CEO role

    Says IPO is "not on the immediate horizon", standing down because the job is now about management rather than building a business. Which is fair enough, although in his case you can't help feeling there's an element of yearning for the good old days of harassing the barmaids without getting...
  11. Northern_Brewer

    Higher stout consumption driven by female drinkers

    No comment... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38891178
  12. Northern_Brewer

    25kg grain sacks.

    The small ones tend not to, I'd agree - but it's usually easy enough to get them to add a sack of uncrushed to their next order. The other thing like that is that in the current environment, many don't pony up for Otter but stock standard pale malt instead.
  13. Northern_Brewer

    25kg grain sacks.

    Your local brewery.
  14. Northern_Brewer

    The downfall of the Tory party.

    All of the UK onshore wind projects are in Scotland, and 2 out of 5 offshore ones. Yes onshore has come down a lot, but the price per kWh of offshore has absolutely crashed in comparison to what it was, thanks to the sheer size of the new turbines and the fact that the more consistent wind...
  15. Northern_Brewer

    Brewdog boss James Watt steps down from CEO role

    Supposedly there was a conversation with Heineken in 2018, but the valuation was so stupid that Heineken just laughed and bought Beavertown instead. Watts and Dickie still have 44% between them. In 2017 TSG Consumer Partners bought 22%, structured as preference shares that pay out first in the...
  16. Northern_Brewer

    Brewdog boss James Watt steps down from CEO role

    It's part of a long-term plan - which he must have signed up to - to make him less visible ahead of an IPO. The City don't like people like that having too much influence, it allows Brewdog to distance themselves from the all the allegations of bad behaviour under his watch.
  17. Northern_Brewer

    The downfall of the Tory party.

    Not true - in the 2022 allocation round, onshore wind came in at £42.47/MWh, offshore wind was 12% cheaper at £37.35/MWh. So given that the wind blows more consistently at sea, and there's no NIMBYs around, it makes sense to prioritise offshore wind. For comparison, solar and energy-from-waste...
  18. Northern_Brewer

    The downfall of the Tory party.

    That's more true in the US, just because of the sheer amount of $$$$ they have to raise to stay competitive - for the Presidency it goes into billions, whereas in the UK parties are capped at about £35m for a national campaign (about £50k per seat). Elphicke's timing is particularly unsubtle...
  19. Northern_Brewer

    Hop plants/rhizomes - growing report

    We've only got 45 days to go until midsummer's day which is the traditional time they reach the top of the wirework, although in reality it seems to be a couple of weeks after that. My Amos Early Bird (Golding clone) only unfurled its first leaf a couple of days ago (slight spring dormancy...
  20. Northern_Brewer

    Brewing giant Heineken will reopen 62 pubs that were closed in recent years and invest £39m in refurbishing hundreds of sites across the UK.

    Star do pretty major refurbs, generally more "gastro" than Spoons. So upgrading/adding kitchens, more dining space, maybe opening up separate rooms, generally tarting things up. But the whole reason why Heineken owns pubs through Star is to sell more Heineken/Fosters/Moretti.... It does mean...
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