High Society

This weekend we went to see the High Society exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in Euston. The show takes an interesting and often humorous look into the history of drugs and their uses, from the 19th Century British Opium trade to Native American peyote ceremonies to psychological warfare. The exhibition explores the subject through a wide range of media, featuring excerpts of film such as Jonathan Miller's 1966 version of Alice in Wonderland, liquid lightshows of 1960s gigs, propaganda such as Reefer Madness, paraphernalia, literature, sculpture, photography and paintings. The exhibition runs to the end of February 2011.


Also on at The Wellcome Collection is Medicine Man, a permanent exhibition about the history of medicine and health with many interesting (and some disturbing) artifacts on display!

Desiderata, Max Ehrmann 1927

Bottling the brew!

The ale was finally ready to bottle! Yay! We're going to leave it a few weeks at least to condition in the bottles before cracking them open, although I did have a little sip whilst siphoning it in and it tasted real good!! Really excited!

Some pictures of the process... oh, and thank you to Magnus for lending us your crown corker!

The Ale

The ale has been coming along well, although it has been a bit slow fermenting - apparently after some research, it's common with this particular kit as it's an all malt brew, but nevertheless it's looking and smelling delicious!

We were hoping to bottle it last weekend, but as it wasn't quite ready (the gravity was still too high), we've tucked it up in a sleeping bag and left it to reside by the radiator for a few more days to finish off. And we think tomorrow it will be good to go!

Pictures of the bottling process to follow....!

Isle of Purbeck

Whilst we were in Dorset over the New Year period, I enjoyed some delicious ales, from Badger of course, but more interestingly from the smaller Isle of Purbeck brewery. I tried their bitter named, Fossil Fuel and a lighter golden ale as the name suggests, Solar Power.

Having researched the brewery since, I realise that they're actually a microbrewery and brew just 4 of their own real ales. The brewery is located within Bankes Arms Country Inn on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset. The brewery also produces their own real ale mustards, pickles, marmalades and sauces!! This pub is definitely on my list of 'to do's' for this year, and in August they hold a four day beer festival which is great as it's right near the beach, perfect for soaking up those long summer evening rays!! Ahh.....

Brew

One of the things on my to do list was to brew my own ale, and as lazy/busy as I was last year, I didn't actually get round to doing it, so I've decided to kick off this New Year by being much more productive (and frugal!) and I've finally bought my first kit! Yay!

Simon claims to have made his own brew many times but as this is our first attempt together, I've decided to make a kit so we can see and understand how it all works - perhaps then we can get into making up our own recipes. We've chosen this kit, Woodforde's Wherry Best Bitter -

It's a no sugar kit which should turn out at a pleasant 4.5%, but we've added a little honey to the fermenting container to make it a little sweeter / stronger, it's just an experiment so we'll see how it turns out!

I haven't got my camera to hand today, so no photos I'm afraid, but I'll be keeping the blog updated over the next week or so to show how it's coming along!

Exciting!!

Sam the Shepherd's Hut

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all had a great one!! We very much enjoyed ours and I can now tell you where we decided to spend it - Sam, the Shepherd's Hut at The Old Forge Bed & Breakfast, Compton Abbas, Dorset.

Peace. And. Quiet. Wonderful!

Sam is a wonderful restored shepherd's hut, beautifully equipped with all the necessities - double bed, wood burning stove, table and chair, wine glasses, homemade rock cakes, lanterns and board games. At first we thought it was a bit mad to go at this time of year but once we got the fire going it was really warm and cosy inside.

Simon in Sam -

It was so nice being on the farm too, the Old Forge has free range black hens, 3 dogs, 2 horses and a donkey, Scrumpy Jack -

The breakfasts Lucy, the owner of Old Forge cooked were delicious and hearty. All ingredients are locally sourced, eggs from their hens, apple juice pressed from apples in their orchard and mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon and sausages (although being a veggie mine were just Quorn) from local organic farms. Lucy also makes her own marmalade and relishes, which were also delicious!!

Some more photos of Sam -

The views.

The inside.

Across the field from Sam is Rosie, a lovely old red wagon that is also available to rent out (if there are 2 couples, you can hire both the hut and wagon for a discount). You can see more photographs and read about it on the website, but I took a peek in just before I left - here it is!