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Late on the Forum tonight as distracted by Carlsen's "signature" win from an objectively drawn position in an unbalanced, though fairly simplified position against his challenger, Jan Nepo.....tchi. May be enough to retain his title after only 6 of the scheduled 14 games. Feel exhausted just...

I recently bought a copy of this 72 page pamphlet that discusses brewing history and contains 131 recipes. Am planning to do 15L batches or so, given the vast amounts of grain (and hops) used. Anyone else tried any of these and what did they think? I have in the past been very enthusiastic...

This is actually about trying to do step mashes in a Grainfather. Sunday I fancied using the MJ20 Bavarian Wheat for the first of a small number of beers with this yeast, Also on the list are a Roggenbier and a Dunkelweisen but first off was a Weissbier. Dead simple recipe: Pale Malt 3kg Wheat...

For many months now my GF has cut out at around 80C - the temps got progressively lower. I got around this by transferring wort to another boiler, boiling, then transferring back to GF to chill. Yesterday, when I was doing the cleaning cycle, the heater element did not come on at any setting...

Well, that's what I was looking forward to. Got back from the gym about 10:30, 3 hours after leaving home, had second breakfasts and was assigned lawnmowing duty first off. SWMBO has been going on about painting the back fences for ages and I thought we only had the fag end of last times...

What about this guys? This is a David ("the man") Heath review of a GF vs the latest Robobrew model. Very interesting, indeed. I have had a GF for 80 brews and almost 3 years now. It has its faults for sure, mainly from fine grain crushes. The competition comes in at half the price and the...

Boxing Day about noon, I trip over a Xmas present, damage my left shoulder (badly and painfully) and we end up calling an ambulance, as I could not imagine moving. 8 hours later, we finally get home. I have fractured the head of my left humerus bone and it is noticeably displaced. The assumed...

I found this at the link below and it arrived today. The mouth of the bottle is around 34mm. This looks great, BTW, and just what I was looking for to age the odd high strength beer. If I were to do such regularly, say twice a year or so, I think a Parti-Gyle approach in the GF would be...

This morning, just before leaving for work (5:00 am) my suspicion is confirmed. The bottom corner of the grain bag in the garage has not been kicked loose and open, it has been chewed. We have had little field mice or whatever in the garage before, but this is the first time since I have had a...

Watched the best game of rugby for a while today in the second test of the 3 match series against NZ. First game was good, this one even better. Too bad it's 2-0 to England, as a decider would be a very fair position on what I saw. In a way, RL is the best game of all, just too bad they had to...

OMG Can anything stop Leinster? Total destruction of Wasps A/B team. The main issue for Wasps is that there is kind of no A team until 3-6 months time. Leinster were immense tonight. Would be a very good team to take a game off them in the European competition. Given, especially, that Leinster...

I live in the shadow of the mighty (if slightly shallow) Winter Hill and the water around here is run-off from the said hill into the local ponds, or "reservoirs". This water has a profile that comes way off the bottom end of the scale for brewing water for all categories except Pilsner. It...

Watched the first game last night as Bristol beat a strangely dysfunctional Bath side in the opening game in what was, frankly a poor match to watch for a spectator not supporting Bristol. Fortunately I have fond memories of Bristol and found the game enthralling. This afternoon, the mercurial...

I live an easy walking distance from Winter Hill (TV Mast, Manx Air Crash) and have spent some happy hours walking mainly on the Southern Eastern section of the Hill. Today there are two main fires - one at Rivington -on the exact opposite side of the Hill and one along the side of the Bolton -...

I don't watch much football these days, but I did pick out the Spain vs Portugal match as possibly the game of the Group phase. Left work especially early, did my cooking for the family etc and only missed the first goal by about a minute. Now, that was a game. A great pleasure to watch. If...

I have been having cut-out issues on my last few brews and attributed this to the grain crush from the latest bag. of MO base malt. After much research and angst, I finally decided that it could be congealed gunk on the boiler plate. In advance of tomorrow's intended brew day, I decided to do a...

Not brewed for a month or so, but drunk plenty. Looking forward to tomorrow's Golden Ale, which is heavily borrowed from the Cornish Tin Miners Ale recipe courtesy of Greg Hughes. Have weighed out the Grain in advance: MO 4.9kg Wheat malt 220g Biscuit 250g Crystal 40 500g Hop schedule is...

Just watched Exeter put 40 points on Montpellier. Great achievement from the Lads on the South Coast. Best team to watch for mine, are Exeter, they play real, ball in hand rugby. Scarlets were Fab last night as well against Bath. Great to watch. Ospreys play the Saracens later tonight, if I can...

An amazing performance from the least predictable team in the Premiership. Somehow beating the best team in Europe, despite losing the fist half by about 83 metres to 17. Also, impressed by the ever expanding skills of Billy "no-look" Twelvetrees. Once this guy was the emerging centre in...

First game tonight, with the ever entertaining Ulster Rugby squeezing past a much depleted Wasps team. A game slightly ruined from a spectator's point of view by the weather. Turned into more of a forward dominated game then the sort we all want to watch. Wasps desperately unlucky this...