Rhetoric IV - the conclusion

It's been a long year it would seem. Although of course the time it has taken the Earth to actually circle the sun has not varied by any conceivable variation, it's just it seems like a long year to this carbon based Earth dwelling organism.

The Earth has nearly completed 11 full orbits of our closest star since I first mashed in. For our Tenth Anniversary year we felt should be marked with something special, and so this is exactly what we did.

We ended last year by brewing Rhetoric IV. The fourth, if you have a struggle with Roman numerals, in our series of experimental beers. It is a peat smoked porter. We put some of it into three separate spirit casks, and applied a certain degree of patience.

The long wait is over and we have now bottled these beers. Labels will be here in a day or two. It is a fairly simple job to run these bottles through the labelling machine and so be able to get them out to people far and wide.

You can buy these beers on our website, of course. But to help you out, and to give folk a chance to try these beers together, we are organising a few Meet The Brewer type things in various locations. We will be bringing a small sample of all our Rhetorics for a rare opportunity for a vertical tasting of all 7 versions.

The Hardknott Anniversary Roadshow

Cherry Reds, Birmingham - Friday 2nd December 6 - 8pm
Otter's Tears, Burslem, Stoke on Trent - Saturday 3rd December 7 - 9pm
The Tap House, Lancaster - Wednesday 7th December 7 - 9pm

Locations where details are still to be confirmed;

The Free Trade Inn, Newcastle-upon-Tyne - "sometime after the 12th"
The Mill, Ulverston, - date to be confirmed
Somewhere in Scotland, hopefully - details still to be clarified
And others still in discussion

About the beers

Rhetoric IV.I - peat smoked imperial stout

Total of around 3,000 bottles produced

This was the original beer using peat smoked malt. It's a great big imperial stout at 11% and gives big chocolate and raisins in the aroma, a taste of orange pith and of course an edgy smoky note reminiscent of a good peated whisky.

Works really well matched with mature cheese.

Rhetoric IV.II - wine cask matured imperial stout

Total of around 620 bottles produced

We put about 220 litres of beer into a red wine cask.

The most striking thing is that the oak has mellowed the peat smoke considerably. So much so that were we to do it again we would increase the peated malt. We get earthy tannic dryness, a hint of mint, peppery merlot and camphor cedar.

Matches well with haggis or orange duck savoury.

Rhetoric IV.III - brandy cask matured imperial stout

Total of around 480 bottles produced

Here we put around 200 litres in a brandy cask. Unfortunately we had a minor issue with the bottling line where a filling valve stuck open. It happens very occasionally. We lost around 30 litres of very delicious beer!

Again, a much reduced smokiness but a lovely in-yer-face milk chocolate tone, very liqueury nose, candy cinnamon spice aroma, destinct coffee and tones of liquorice.

Matches well with apple slice or gingerbread.

Rhetoric IV.IV - whisky cask matured imperial stout

Total of around 550 bottles produced

Again, about 200 litres went into a whisky cask. It seems the distillers have got a little cautious now about what brewers are using which casks and we got very little detail about the cask. It's normal ends were painted over to prevent us seeing the brand.

A significant problem with all of the casks was the debris from the charred insides of the cask. The whiskey cask in particular was very troublesome.

The resultant beer however is a striking with a campfire and charred wood thing reminiscent of simple fire baked bread. Toasted, roasted, smoky oak chips. Mellow cherry aroma and a glace cherry taste.

Matches well with plum crumble.

Hardknott is nearly 10 years old

Back when I was an engineer¹I dreamt of running my own business. It came to a bit of a head, fairly suddenly, when a combination of dissatisfaction with the job I was doing combined with a little bit of luck property wise. We sold our house and bought a pub.

This was late in 2003. I have always had a love of good food and drink, preferably locally sourced, made by people I know, full-flavoured and interesting. I liked something different.  Always on the lookout for a different night out, that different flavour, interesting take, and anything really that moved away from the same-old-same-old that dominates the wider leisure industry. This ethos, this desire to be different has percolated through everything we've done in our business.

In 2005 we decided to buy some brewery kit. A 2-and-a-bit² barrel brew house complete with two fermenters. I set it up in the Autumn of 2005 and got it all working and mashed in for the first time Christmas Eve 2005. The beer fermented over the Christmas period and we had the first beer on the bar New Years Eve just in time to see in 2006.

Fast forward to the present day, five years after we sold the pub and moved to Millom, and we are rapidly approaching our Tenth Anniversary. We've grown quite a bit, bought a bottling line, and bigger and better tanks. We've still got a long way to go before I feel we have a secure and solid future for Hardknott - we are literally desperate to build a new brewhouse for a start.³

Ten years down the line I have a team that seem to get on with the job of making stunning beer without much hassle. I only occasionally get asked for technical input and in that regard have stepped back to the role of just tasting the beer, looking over recipe proposals and feeling like, if I interfere, it would simply be for the sake of stamping my authority. Don't fix what ain't broke they say, so I don't.

Of course I couldn't let our 10th Anniversary date slip by without doing something special. We haven't made a Rhetoric for a little while. The next one is Rhetoric IV, and so we thought it should be our anniversary beer. We've made an imperial stout with peat smoked malt. It adds a great extra dimension we think.

We've actually called this one Rhetoric IV.I - or if you prefer 4.1. "Why the point 1?" you ask. Well, because we've put some in some spirit casks to bottle later on in 2016, just so you have something to look forward to. Rhetoric IV.II, IV.III and IV.IV will be issued through 2016 when we deem them to be ready.

We'll be bottling Rhetoric IV.I very soon, so look out for it.


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¹I still consider myself to be an engineer. If stuff goes wrong at the brewery it is generally me who has to fix it. Indeed, my "To fix" list grows every day. I'm sort of hoping that some things will drop off the end and make it on to the "To weigh in" list as we get to afford to replace some things, but that is another story, which I hope to tell you soon. Meanwhile, I am now a part-time engineer, as I also have a business to run.

²I used to kid myself it was a two and a half barrel brewery. It wasn't really. I was lucky to get 9 firkins out of a fermenter, and generally 8 and a pin much more likely. Our tanks now are around 1600 litres or more per brew. Nominal 10 brewery barrels.

³Again, more news on this soon, I hope. My people are still working on a few things here. You know, accountants, business plans, solicitors and contracts. All really boring stuff I have to deal with just to move us upwards and onwards.