Couldn’t resist cracking open a bottle of my stout tonight to see what it was like! It was so good, I couldn’t stop raving about it to the Queen all evening. And had to text Fendog with the news of a very successful brew.

I was pleasantly surprised that it was darker and had a better head than I expected. And it tasted great – perhaps a little hoppier than most commercial stouts but very pleasant and not unlike the Bernard Dark from which it inherited its bottle.

As per the results on the poll on this site, I’ll be calling it Otter’s Pocket and its a definite winner - I’ll be making this again!

Got a few of the lads together at the Dandy’s to help us get through some of our vast reserves of homebrew beer. It was also a good chance to get people’s opinion on the Otter’s Pocket and to unveil the Padded Jacket IPA and the Headcracker Barleywine.

Despite making disappointing inroads into our supplies, we had a good night which degenerated into a lesson in pipe-smoking from the Geek. The beer was a bit hit and miss. The IPA was superb and everyones favourite. It was just how an IPA should be (although some of the others needed convincing of that since their definition of IPA was based on Greene King’s misnamed beverage). For some reason one of the bottles of Otter’s pocket was pretty minging and you just couldn’t get that out of your head, even when you were actually tasting from the good lot. And I think it was just a little too early to be drinking the Barleywine. I had only bottled it four days before and it needed longer to condition properly.

We left the unfinished keg and bottles and the Dandy’s. Thats the last we’ll see of them, no doubt.

Without Q around, it took Fendog several weeks to re-assemble the cider press and pulper in his back yard. But finally its all set up and he he has vowed never to move it again. Its a absolute monster.

After a tip-off from the Parson, Fendog, Gogs and I hit the Aston’s Eyot nature reserve to do some scrumping. We soon found a tree laden with apples and set to work…

We collected about three wheelbarrows full of apples and took them back to the Lab in the back of my car (which still smells pretty fruity). And then the fun and games began.

The pulper is lethal and required careful lid co-ordination to prevent the entire garden being showered with apple. Fendog’s housemates are of the opinion that we failed on this score.

After mincing the apples we made the cheeses by lining a mould with hessian and pressing the pulp into it. These were then placed into the press between wooden boards and the pressure applied either with the screw-jack or the bottle jack.

And hey-presto the juice is collected in a suitable vessel. We managed to do about 5 gallons that afternoon before getting bored. I took a bit to drink as juice and the rest was left to ferment naturally without adding any yeast or sugar.

Had the Dandy over last night under the pretense of dinner. But really just wanted to show off the Otter’s Pocket stout. The mission was a perfect success – he raved about it and couldn’t believe how much is cost to make, saying he would gladly pay full price in a pub for it.

I don’t thinkit will be long before we have the Dandy brewing his own.