Scottish 70/- ale

Given the result of the EU referendum, a friend and I decided that the only course of action was to open the barrel of Scottish 70/- that has been conditioning in my garage for a number of weeks. The 70/- refers to the old UK currency of 70 shillings. The beer was referred to by its the invoice price per barrel. This one was very drinkable and made up for the recent Lambic failure.

The beer was lively enough to produce a good head on the glass which would stay to the bottom of the glass. If I had to find fault, I would say that the wort was too strong probably due to evaporation during the boil. As a result, the beer is a lot darker than it should be and actually reminded us of a porter. It should be a lighter brown.

This is the sort of beer I like - real ale that is not too hoppy. Drinking resumed on Sunday at my monthly Beer Club where I force my friends to drink my results. I brewed the beer back in May with a former colleague who unfortunately could not come to Beer Club. And he never will as we finished the barrel off completely. It needed to be gassed twice to get us to the bottom but we got there in the end.

[caption id="attachment_6407" align="alignright" width="299"] Stoofvlees with Roast Potatoes[/caption]

Three pints of it went into my first attempt at Stoofvlees (Flemish Stew made with beef, onions, beer and thickened with bread and mustard).

In terms of the brewing, I feel like I'm getting there. I know the limitations of my brewing equipment and how to work around them. It is someone I will be doing once a month for the foreseeable future.