I scour book fairs and events for books, not just pub books but any books that interest me. I’ve always been interested in trading pub and beer books so we do have a few in stock at any given time; I will get them onto the webshop and keep it updated as and when stock changes.
Obviously, anyone who’s interested in our great British pub industry will want to have this work of minor genius on the shelf and, weirdly, we do have a few left…
Short YouTube video of beer line cleaning. We use a Cornelius keg in this one but it’s the same process using a cleaning bottle as well.
Short video showing one of our wholegrain recipe kits
Delivering malt, hops, wholegrain recipe kits and more across the Fylde Coast
The webshop is live, has been for a while now, and should be very simple to use. Malts are marked by the kilo and you have the option to pick a quantity on the product page. Same with hops in 100gm quantities.
At checkout you will have the option of delivery or pickup. Orders over £20 will give a free delivery option, orders below £20 can still be delivered but will be charged at £3.50. There’s always the option of picking up from Thornton for free.
Deliveries are currently Saturdays only. We will work with you if you’re in a rush and can’t wait for Saturday to come around, just drop us an email: steve@shedbeer.co.uk, and we will figure it out.
Recipe Kits
We do keep a selection of recipe kits and those are available via the webshop in the usual way. Our kits use 22-23lt kettle voulme to give some 18lt into the fermenter. They’re designed that way so that most homebrewers already have the gear they need, the very common plastic buckets most folk use are 22lt or so which means 18lt gives sufficient headspace. We are not stuck on that volume though, so if you want more we can bump up to whatever volume you work with.
We can make kits up to order as well if we have the stock, again just drop us an email: steve@shedbeer.co.uk, and we will have a look at your recipe and see if we can help.
Bulk Purchasing
We get asked fairly regularly for bulk purchase discounts and that is something we can do. We may not always have the same idea of what ‘bulk’ means but we are always happy to have the conversation so, again, just drop us an email.
We’ve seen some inspiring creativity in the world of home bars during the last few months and we’ve been asked to fit a few out or resolve some technical gremlins. Who knew that the humble pallet was so versatile?
Behind the bar though, people want beer and if you want beer on draught then it’s an extra level of commitment. What we are doing with this post is going through what that commitment will entail.
So, what do we need to get beer from our keg into our glass?
Well, gas will drive the beer from the keg (don’t need to know how do you? Thought not) but we want it cold don’t we? And we don’t want a glass of foam; cold or not.
The gas we use, typically, is CO2 and we can get CO2 in cylinders. The trouble is that CO2 cylinders run at 850psi or so and beer is dispensed at 12psi; give or take. Please don’t take a CO2 cylinder into your life without understanding its needs. In all honesty it’s pretty simple; make sure you buy food grade CO2 and for fuck’s sake don’t try and save ten quid by using a welding regulator.
I went to a job this week that genuinely scared me. He had a welding regulator wide open and the pressure into the keg was phenomenal. The beer was firing out of the tap like a damn fire hydrant and I felt like we were one step away from a very messy end, although it would have been a pretty rock’n’roll way to go. Take CO2 cylinders seriously; they can do some serious damage.
Regulators aren’t expensive, think £50 or so, and should be thought of as an absolute must; don’t cut corners there.
Okay, so we’re out of the keg without putting the man cave into orbit but we need the beer to be not only at non-lethal pressures but cool as well, not Fonzi cool neccessarily, but pretty damn cool. How are we going to make that happen? Well, one of these would be an excellent solution.
This is an under bar or flash cooler. This is what is going to sit between your room temperature keg of beer and the ice cold pint in your glass. This one is a typical ‘4 out’ Maxi, they work by passing the beer through a stainless coil which sits in a cold water bath. The two pipes that point upwards are connected to a water recirculation pump which can be used to keep beer lines cold between cooler and tap and also to cool the font on the bar. The ones that ‘sweat’ condensation? That’s from a water recirc pump chilling it.
So the flow is CO2 from the regulator goes into the keg via the coupler at 12psi or so. This forces the beer out via the same coupler and into the ‘in’ side of the cooler. The beer is chilled and then exits the cooler on the ‘out’ side heading for the tap. Between the cooler and the tap we fit a flow controller, we use a flow controller to, erm, control the flow of the beer.
The enemy of a good pint is excessive foam (fobbing) and our number one weapon is the flow controller. They’re not expensive and should really be viewed as a must have piece of kit.
This isn’t particularly complex work, setting up a home bar to give you decent beer, but it can be tricky to get right and there’s not much more frustrating than a glass full of foam when you wanted a cold beer. If you want to do it yourself it isn’t beyond you; honestly. Just treat the C02 with respect, follow the flow logically, and give us a call if you get stuck.
Update
We are increasingly seeing continental style lagers in home bars and those don’t play very well with CO2; you can run into pretty bad fobbing problems. The answer is mixed gas, usually 60/40, and a different regulator setup. If you’re planning to dispense continental lagers then mixed gas is the way to go.
Steve
We have sourced some hops at bargain prices and are passing some savings onto the the homebrew community.
You have to buy a decent amount (hey – so did we!) but there are some absolute bargains in the webshop – like 250gm of Amarillo or Cascade for £9.00!
We won’t be able to maintain these prices but we can for now; hoppy brewing!
Hops and Malts for Homebrewers
As lockdown eases our supply lines are opening up and we are able to add more products to the inventory and enable us to better support our thriving local homebrewing community. Our aim is to be able to supply hops and malts for homebrewers across the Fylde Coast from our stock here in Thornton.
Hops for homebrewers wise, we currently carry Magnum, Cascade (both UK and US versions) Bramling Cross, Fuggles, Goldings and Chinook. We should have some Citra arriving next week although anyone who wants Citra hop pellets should take a deep breath; they are coming to us at 4.5 times the cost of any of our other hop pellet stock!
In malts, we have Maris Otter, Extra Pale Ale, Munich Malt, Caramalt and Torrified Wheat. We should be adding rolled oats with our next delivery, which we use a lot of over here in the brewshed, and we are always looking to add to the inventory.
We also carry several complete all-grain recipe kits and are happy to make them up to order as well; if you have a recipe you want to brew we can probably make up the kit for you.
As we come to understand what’s needed we will add products wherever we can find a supply, 500ml beer bottles at £7.20 a dozen with crown caps for instance, keep an eye on the site and our Fylde Homebrew Facebook page and drop us a message if we can fill a gap!
Shed Beer – brewing locally, brewing sustainably, delivering locally. Supporting homebrewers across the Fylde Coast
As the country comes back to life and we all try to figure out what the new ‘normal’ looks like and we over here at Shed Beer are no different.
Our guess at the moment is that, as the pubs open and we begin to socialise again, then people who had a function planned for summer or autumn might start thinking that it’s possible again.
What this should mean is that our ‘Beer Shed’ concept is back in play and that we will be able to supply kick ass mobile bars to events and functions across the Fylde Coast.
These are completely self contained units; all they need is a plug socket. We deliver the unit, plug it in and make sure it’s happy, give you a guided tour and leave you to it. Give the unit a couple of hours and you will have cold craft beer to dispense yourself; it’s that simple.
We are currently looking at dates in July as being possible so are happy to put some dates in the diary. Initial enquiries by email to steve@shedbeer.co.uk and we will give you a call to discuss.
Steve
This year, 2020, will probably go down in history as the weirdest of the 21st century – although there’s a while to go so something really weird could happen yet.
For the beer industry it’s unprecedented, not even global conflicts have stopped the brewers brewing, so the industry has had to adapt on the fly and consumers have adapted right along with it.
This has, quite obviously, led to a huge increase in small pack beer consumption. I felt at the time that keeping beer on the ‘essentials’ list was a very British thing to do in a crisis and like the troopers we are we set about expanding our beer consumption rates with a will; heroes every one of you!
Our understanding right now, on the 5th of June, is that pubs will be able to open 4th/5th of July. That’s subject to confirmation and there will clearly be some guidance for businesses to adhere to but it’s definitely welcome news for many of us.
It’s also quite clear that many of us have enjoyed having their beer fix at home and and it’s been interesting for us over here at Shed Beer to have been part of helping that to happen. Our own beers have gone into bottles, we’ve been putting cask beer into bag in boxes and we’ve also helped some customers with fitting out bars at home.
Some of the creativity we’ve seen has been inspiring; who knew that the humble pallet could be put to such brilliant use?
Where this leaves us is really, genuinely, pleased that pub opening is on the horizon but also believing that home consumption is still going to be significant.
For us as a small business, what that means is that we will continue to support (and encourage!) those who choose to take their beer fix at home. We will carry as many small pack lines as we possibly can and continue to bottle as much of our own output as we can for home delivery across the Fylde Coast.
Once our supply lines are less gummed up and the brewers are actually brewing beer again we will be able to supply pretty much anything for those with bars at home from bulk beer in kegs to CO2 cylinders.
Steve
It’s been a bit of a tail-chasing exercise trying to keep up with demand in these weird times, and then we had a brewhouse (well, brewshed!) problem that meant a full batch of West Coast Pale and a full batch of Shed Bodds went down the drain.
We are beyond that now though and both products are conditioning right now and tasting great. The plan is to have some Shed Bodds and some T’Stout available on the webshop this coming weekend, so 29/05 onwards, and then some West Coast Pale the following week.
Beyond this we should be right up to speed and brewing at least once a week. We have some new vessels arriving this week which will give us three times the capacity we have now.
We pretty much always have great beers available, just not always Shed beers. The new capacity should solve that.
Steve
