Recent content by HoppyTommy

Reminds me of the foot and hand print art work my 3 yr old daughter did of what was supposed to a pink butterfly at nursery. It hung pride of place on the fridge until my brother pointed out it looked like a massive fanny!!! Once you'd mentally made the jump it was hard to spot the butterfly...

Top tip. I've gone to all nice matching brown glass bottles and never thought of using a single PET one as tester.

Bottled last night. Tasted great at this stage. Mainly chocolate flavour coming through at present but hoping the orange and cinnamon will re-emerge after conditioning. Haven't bottled a brew in ages as usually keg. What a fuss rinsing out and sterilising 46 bottles!!!

I live in Stone and work in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. I don't mind passing some stuff on if required. I only live about 10 mins from J14 on the M6. I've got mates in Sandbach from when I used to live there so would probably prefer to collect from there. What do you reckon the shelf life of...

Thanks for that. Very useful. A friend told me he'd made a bonfire night beer and overdone the treacle but couldnt remember how much he'd added. How much molasses would you go for in a 40 pint brew? I aiming for a hint of treacle flavour rather than a party political broadcast of the stuff.

I've decided to make a Porter for Xmas (using an all grain Dark Rock - Smoke on the Porter kit as a base). I had a plan of making it more festive by adding some extra ingredients or flavourings. Quite fancy something smokey / sweet maybe slightly spiced. I was going to add a tin of treacle...

Kegged it on Wednesday. Tasted great, even at this stage. Had to stop my pal eating the cocoa nibs out of the trub!!!!

Same here. No meetings at present. Our Lodge has quite a range of health care professionals and elderly members so we decided not to meet. Luckily we're doing 2 years each in the chair so I'm not due in till Jan 2022, may be Jan 2023 at this rate, fingers crossed!!

Ready Lodge 4008 in the Province of Staffordshire. Senior Warden & Charity Steward. No ideas for a themed beer but our local brewery in Stone, Lymestone Brewery, always has a "stone" in their beer names. I don't think he's a Freemason but there is vague masonry link there for you. We're...

I've only got a couple of cheap Giant bikes (one hybrid and one road bike). The big revelation for me was last year going for a ride without my daughter's tag along ( and her ) attached to my bike after about 4 years. It was like someone had stuck a rocket up my ****!!!

Will let you know. Me and some pals had some really good chocolate stouts from Brewdog so we thought we'd give it a go. It's going in an old King Keg and not one of my cornies so it can sit there for ages if it's heavy going. I tend to find the king kegs suit stouts better.

I've just made a Milky Way Chocolate Stout from Dark Rock. The instructions for that had me putting the lactose in with the yeast. Dissolved pretty well in the brew at about 19 degrees.

beko tda735s It's pretty old though, I reckon at least 10yrs. My dad has a version without the freezer. We still use the freezer bit as an overflow for our main freezer which is annoying as I found the fridge a little too cold for my beer. If I put an inkbird controller on it to lift the...

Yes please

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