At last we meet the Oxford Brewers group
With their monthly meetings on Wednesday evenings, Fendog and I have been unable to meet the Oxford Brewers group as Wednesdays find us hard at prayer and Bible study. Admirable, you may think. But one cannot help recalling the wise words of Martin Luther, champion of the reformation:
“I’d rather my people were in the ale-house thinking of church, than in church thinking of the ale-house.”
How true.
Anyway, having heard agout the Brewgroup many months ago, and having had some email correspondence, we were pleased that they planned an EGM on a Saturday afternoon and invited us to come along. So we met up with them today at the Royal Blenheim, a gem of a pub on the corner of Pembroke Street and St Ebbes Street with a great selection of beers mainly from the White Horse brewery.
We were expecting it to be a bunch of old farts but we were pleasantly surprised. Most of them were actually relatively young farts. Most of the discussion was procedural and uninspiring though we were able to give some input on possible events and how to attract new brewers.
Because it was an EGM there wasn’t as much opportunity as we would have like to pick peoples brains on techniques and recipes, but I did get chatting to one of them about growing my own hops on my allotment. Apparently he grows his own in his garden, produces a good yield, and freezes the hops without drying it. The only problem is that how much to use then becomes total guesswork and each brew is experimental. Apparently he knows a good place to source the bare rooted plants so I might well go for it. Watch this space!
