Well, you’ll all be reading this as this website goes live, but in fact, these words began quite a while back in preparation for just this day! I’m sitting here in beautiful Bakewell, Derbyshire, the brewing kettle boiling away behind me, billowing clouds of steam floating into the almost autumnal sky and we’re slowly getting ready to brew a whopping 600 casks worth of beer for the up and coming International Real Ale Festival.
What does this mean exactly? Well it depends how far back you want to go...

I could start with the fact that it rains quite a lot over here, which is quite handy for us brewers as we source our water from Severn Trent, who in turn provide our water from a series of reservoirs  situated around the area. If you look up into the sky right now, it’s great to know that the cloud you see may one day be in your pint glass! In fact, a beer like the one we’re going to be brewing is probably around 95% water... it’s a pretty important resource!