Best wishes to the latest island business folk Gavin Clark & Joanne Fowler who have taken over the running of the well loved island icon The Pantry. Its reopened after a makeover and buzzing by all accounts.
Its still the venue for home baked bread and lots of other goodies. We just hope that May is still makingnher rock cakes-the best in the world. Good luck Gavin and Joanne.
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We were approached recently by someone wanting a bit of guidance on how to set up a brewery. US!
At first we thought it was an island wag taking the mickey but no further inquries revealed it to be a genuine request.
So we had a meeting and a chat and passed on the secrets of our success, which didn't take long, and off they went.
We were left scratching heads until we twigged --- find out how Colonsay Brewery operates - then do the complete opposite and you're bound to succeed.
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After a considerable period of time more than usual the lager is in tip top shape and has been bottled today. We'll get it out to folk as fast as possible. The upside is that the longer fermentation (caused by the cold weather) has done it no harm at all and we're pretty pleased with it. Easter's coming and we're brewing flat out to meet the demand of customers old and new. It’s always a funny time of year - a little sad as Colonsay moves out of its peaceful period -- but excited about the summer that's now not all that far away. We've heard its going to be a barbeque summer. Well chilled lager stretching out as far as the eye can see --- and well chilled brewers waiting to drink it.
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We sometimes feel a little inadequate delivering to our good customer Peckham’s in Glasgow. Theirs is a slick operation. Anne sits upstairs at her computer and her fingers dance over the keyboard with each stroke dispatching more of their top notch foodstuffs to their chain of shops in Edinburgh Glasgow and further North. Anne, we imagine, is a Wagnerian Conductor orchestrating her army in their subterranean vaults with precise efficiency ensuring all gets to where it’s meant to be, and in the best of condition.
This does not sit well with our rather more Hebridean approach to matters and sometimes we think we may just be getting in the way as we roll up with boxes of beer to clutter up this happy scene.
Imagine our horror this morning to arrive and find a proper brewery van in the queue in front of us. This well known brewery had a big shiny liveried vehicle - obviously, we thought, packed to the gunwales with cases of beer to put our little brewery's delivery to shame.
Then our jumps the equally liveried driver - and hands over five cases of beer. FIVE. We don't get out of bed for five cases of beer. So we swagger past and ostentatiously ask when the fork lift will be free to unload our beer. Sucker.
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The absence of the h makes this a non-island story. We send away a steady trickle of beer sold through our online shop (see link above and buy (but not lager at the moment.) Often, as we wander round to Keith the Post with a few cases to Parcelforce away, we wonder what has prompted the order. Is it people who have been to Colonsay and fancy a little bit of their holiday magic shipped back to them? Or beer buffs trawling the www. to find obscure breweries and sample thier wares.
One guy from Cardiff bought a case the other day and went to the trouble to phone us up to compliment the brewers on their work saying it was great beer - some of the best he'd had. We thanks for that - but was there any need to sound surprised?
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