Jim's Beer Kit

My advice, if you’re young, especially a women of childbearing age, try to avoid plastic in the brewing process, especially where high temperatures are involved or where long-term contact with alcohol is likely. I’m not that young but it bothers me. Everyone else, just carry on as you see fit. Prob...

It certainly seems like the marketplace is saturated with brewers that have no passion for making a good beer. They probably taste a couple of mass-produced, generic APAs or whatever and try to replicate them. I've had a similar experience with a brewery in Pontardawe that is based in an outbuilding...

And breweries can get better - or conversely, get worse! A case in point being a local brewpub near to me (not being more specific for diplomatic reasons). On visiting several years ago, I was not overly impressed with the beers, but they have persisted and the head brewer has lifted the quality si...

My next-door neighbour is actually next-door at times! Okay, he's German and is usually residing at home in Germany. He's had two new breweries in his hometown after years of none at-all. He brings bottles of them over here, so I get to try them. They are aw... ... pretty damn excellent actually! A...

Nitro Jim wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 29, 2025 10:42 am

MarkA wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 28, 2025 9:43 pm

I have only tried the bottle version of Doom Bar which has about as much flavour a Tennants, not sure if the cask version is an improvement)

Don't go there... It's not!

Thanks, I'll steer clear of it!

"Definitely, though this particular brewery are only using a 100 litre system." How can they expect to make money brewing that amount of beer even if it was good ? They must have a lot of 120 litre fermentation vessels ! I brew 60 litre batches and that is for personal consumption :D There was a br...

It’s not difficult, with some enthusiasm, to make a great home brew, but scaling up to commercial level is a bit more challenging. Definitely, though this particular brewery are only using a 100 litre system. Quality assurance a must. The worst thing home brewers turning pro can do (after a couple ...

This is a familiar tale! I have a small shop down here in Cornwall, we sell local beers as well as the usual cornish gins, wines and what have you. I have come across so many bad beers its unbelieveable they have the brass neck to try and sell them. I must also say that the majority of small brewer...

A young guy set up a micro in a village near to us a couple of years ago. How it is still in business amazes me. He produces four or five beers which if you were blindfolded you could not tell which was which. The only difference is the colour and the label. He is not alone. Over the years I have t...

Cancelled today which required a 10 minute phone call, I only thought to do it because of this thread, so thank you very much for saving me from more bad beer! Glad it helped you! I had a Beer52 sub a few years back and found that most of the beers were very similar. There was one box that had a Ge...

I'm in Scotland. cant be any worse than tennents,only good thing about that was the cans back in the days when i was a teenager. I was actually forced to drink a pint of Tennants at a gig last weekend, as there was nothing else. It was fizzy, thin and tasteless, but infinitely more drinkable than w...

Cobnut wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 27, 2025 4:52 pm

I’ve had a similar experience with a small brewer here in Suffolk. Once bitten…

I'm always enthusiastic to see a new small brewery open up, especially locally. But yeah, hard to justify spending good money on something that could well be awful.

It is weird that there are people out there who couldn't even make a decent homebrew imagining they're good enough make beer commercially. I Know! When I drink my homebrew, I often drink it alongside commercial beers I like (Proper Job etc) just to see how it compares. Often it's good, sometimes no...

It wasn't in Norfolk was it? I had a similar experience with some bottles from a tiny microbrewery many years ago. No Jim, I'm in Scotland. It makes you wonder what happened to quality control, surely you'd have to taste each batch before it's put out on sale? Worse still, maybe they do taste every...

vacant wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 27, 2025 12:55 pm

They were just hoping the sediment will stick to the bottom.

Possibly, there was way too much of it though, approx 6mm!