The Colonsay - 5pm Wednesday April 11 - - - - After a pier side meeting Colonsay Brewery Beer and Lager is ordered for the hotel.
Brewery sales executive - The skiver - was painting his boat. Hotel proprietor Alex Howard was painting his boat, both at the harbour. Skiver and proprietor fell into conversation along the lines of you have a hotel and we have a brewery - lets sort the whole thing out.
Ok price agreed order placed and for once the skiver managed to get it together and within 15 minutes lager and 80/- Ale was delivered to the hotel. Back at the harbour, as a good will gesture, skiver gave proprietor a roll of masking tape - obviously the beginning of a long business relationship.
So beer delivered ===== will it be on sale tonight? I hope so - I'm off for dinner there.
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Apologies for literals and poor grammar - it’s been a long and hard day. But a good one.
Bottling happened yesterday. The lager and 80/- were started and sales were achieved in the afternoon. The Colonsie (the island beer sales index) rose several points over the afternoon as strong demand was met by weakened supply. However the price remained steady at Two Pounds fifty.The rub came this morning when by 11 am ( with the shop still shut) we had repeat customers who had bought the day before, drunk and declared the product successful. The best of the endorsements came from former island hotelier Kevin Byrne who had sampled the 80/- with friends whose total experience in the licensed trade added up to 170 years and they were pleased with their pints.
Amongst the brewers there is a debate however as to whether the head of the finished pint is right. There is a good head but the consistency worries two of us and satisfies the other two. Is this down to the beer drinking antecedence of the parties involved....or something that needs addressed. Key island experts have bottles away tonight - they will not be shy in passing judgment. The hotel has confirmed their decision to taker the beers - final details are being worked out. The owner of one of Scotland best known restaurants happened in while holiday and has signed up too. Not bad for day one of beer selling for real.
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Just a quick note to say all is now here. Lager has been kegged and is now being bottled. The 80/- is next. Bottles will be on sale this afternoon - the hotel are coming down for a tasting this afternoon too...and then the directors of the Isle of Colonsay Brewing Company Ltd will be forgathering for a tasting themselves.
Progress will be reported tomorrow - latish.
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Forget the last entry. Supply chain problems mean the bottling equipment is not coming today. It will be here on Wednesday of next week - or thursday (summer timetable) so its going to be a busy old run up to Easter. But who would start a brewery on a remote Atlantic island is they were not up for a bit of a challenge.
The sign is up, however, and now everyone knows where the brewery is. Picture soon.
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Success - The IPA is brewed - and it all went reasonably well. George reckons better than that. We are now on course to begin bottling when George returns to the Island on Friday. We haven’t told him the summer timetable starts on Friday so when he turns up late for the 12 o'clock boat he will be delighted to find out that he's actually early for the 5pm boat.
We expect to sent up the bottling line early on Saturday morning and begin bottling the lager first.
That means historic first sales will take place this weekend. What joy. What a journey from four folk sat in the bar last Easter saying lets start a brewery - and we did. The excitement of opening, and drinking, the first bottle will be immense. We have already tasted, at some length, the beer and lager from the conditioning tanks and we reckon its pretty bloody good.
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