It is fast approaching 92 time again - indeed we expect to have 92 Squadron landing at the more discerning pubs by mid-April.  This time round though we have tried something a bit new...  It has long been a plan of ours to do a stronger version of one of our core beers - something like, say, a Highwayman X-Type at 5%.  And so we will have, in due course, a 6% brew based on the aforementioned 92 Squadron.  We have had very little experience of strong beers here - only rarely hitting the dizzy heights of 5.2% (Silence, currently out of circulation), with a single brew of Entire Porter at 5.9%.  As a result, I am not entirely sure just when this 6% brew will be ready for release - the Porter was starting to peak at 8 months old, but a 13 month-old sample was still rather pleasing.  I rather suspect the forst outing of this brew will be at the Baldock Beer Festival, over the first weekend of May, other outings being fairly restricted and spread out.  So now you what to do for May Day weekend, which reminds me....

Last year, for the very first Baldock Beer Festival (although not the first beer festival in Baldock), we brewed Knight Templar, a 4.9% golden ale.  To say it was popular would be a understatement, as it was not only the first beer to run out, the second firkin held in reserve (just in case), was apparently the second beer to run out.  Needless to say, it has therefore been brewed again, and it is, as I type, fermenting away most merrily.  Of course this is the tricky second brew, and even with a 12 month gap I am sure someone will say it isn't as good as the first.  Mind you, these folk can spot a difference between two consecutive pints if you tell them they are from different batches.

Once the Templar is casked up, we'll be looking at Agincourt, another one of our 4% ship beers, and I'm rather pleased with the pump clip for this one, so do keep your eyes peeled for it.  Otherwise on the brewing front its been a lot of Plover and Highwayman - and I mean a lot.  It's a funny old world  - I mean we are in a global reccession, the UK pub trade is on the edge of collapse, yet we are selling more beer than ever.  And we are not alone in saying this.  So why are pubs still struggling?  Why is it getting harder to get paid on time?  Someone somewhere is creaming off all the fat.  But who?  Is it really the banks, or perhaps the government - or the fuel companies?  Someone has all the chuffing cash, and it ain't anyone we know.  Mind you, over 5 days to clear a cheque doesn't help, and it doesn't help to complain.  We know of several who have, and hey presto, away goes the overdraft facility...

Anyway, must go - the truck needs fuelling, so have another mortgage to arrange.  Ta ra!