Fairwater Brewery

Laurel & Ash

2026-08-29T00:00:00Z

Another recipe suggested by generative AI... this one from Gemini. I wanted to use the abundance of bay leaves we have in our garden for something in a beer, despite the advice I received from a professional brewer who, when asked "what should I do with a load of bay leaves", he suggested "make lots of ragu"!

But Gemini suggsted this idea of a lichtenhainer, so I'm going for it. It only uses 2 fresh bay leaves, so it's not exactly going to make much difference to the tree, but never mind..!

Here's the recipe.

Photon

2026-08-07T00:00:00Z

A friend was really enjoying Sierra Nevada's "Sunny Little Thing" at the Maidenhead Craft Beer Festival earlier in the year, and asked if I could make something along those lines, so here goes!

The name "Photon" has a simple explanation - it's the littlest bit of something sunny that I could think of.

The recipe was created through conversations with CoPilot, but it doesn't appear to have hallucinated too much, so with luck this will be a nice beer, even if not hugely accurate.

Here's the recipe.

After fighting a bit with getting my numbers at the end of the boil, I slowed my sparge right down to where it used to be, and this one was spot on. Guess that'll teach me!

I'm hoping to get this on tap for a party at the weekend, I fined it with Brausol yesterday evening and intend to keg it on Thursday evening, and force-carb it.

Over The Fence IPA 2 - Motueka edition

2026-08-01T00:00:00Z

We live literally next door to local brewing legend Tim Lloyd (he of Elusive Brewery's Morrisman fame), and we've been friends since we moved in, so it made sense when Tim suggested that we do a collaboration brew. It made even more sense when he suggested we call it "Over The Fence IPA"!

The first version was based on my frequent "Facets" receipe, with Nelson Sauvin. For our repeat, we're sticking with New Zealand but Motueka this time. I couldn't remember if we'd chosen Motueka or Riwaka, so I got both, but the day before Tim posted that we would be using Mosaic, so this was clearly well thought out! In the end we settled on Motueka, so I'll keep the Riwaka for a later New Zealand Pilsenser or something!

To make a bit more of a day of it, we've invited a bunch of friends over as well. Should be a nice day of brewing, drinking, eating, and chatting!

Here's the recipe.

The Morrisman himself!

Another of Tim's colabs - the label is Tim being taken for a walk by his dog, Obsidian

Rhubarb & Gooseberry Crumble Sour

2026-07-11T00:00:00Z

This is my latest iteration of this sour. I'm still using up the rather large quantities of frozen fruit I was gifted along with the freezer I used to make my keezer.

This recpie was tweaked in conversation with Gemini to try and get a more biscuity, crumble-like flavour from the grains. I also doubled the amount of fruit I used, to push those flavours front and centre.

Here's the recipe.

I took a 12l keg to a friend's party last week, and the consensus was that this is the best batch so far, which was pleasing to hear! I would still like to emphasise the crumble a little more, so more tweaking is called for.

Fairwater Czech Lager

2026-07-11T00:00:00Z

This is basically a repeat of an earlier recipe, this time with NovaLager rather than W34/70, and a simple single step infusion mash, rather than a decoction.

The first time I did it was based on this recipe (I think!) from TMM

Last time I was pleased with it, and I wanted something similar for the hot summer we're having. Slight changes to the hop schedule to last time, to use what I had in stock, but I stuck with traditional noble varieties.

Here's the recipe.

ESB

2026-05-08T00:00:00Z

I've made a few variations on the ESB theme over the years. This batch's variation is that I used WHC Saturated yeast - while this isn't a NEIPA (obviously) I have heard that it's a good choice for an English bitter as well.

For some reason my OG was low - 1.048 rather than the target 1.056. Not sure why, possibly I sparged a bit quicker than I do usually. I'll try to remember to take more measurements on my next brew and if I'm low again then I might get an idea of which stage is causing it.

Here's the recipe.

Fairwater Facets - Super-Citra-delic

2026-05-01T00:00:00Z

The next in the Facets series - using my old favourite Citra, combined with the new kid on the block Superdelic.

Even at dry-hopping time it's tasting rather good!

Here's the recipe.

RABFest tickets now on sale!

2026-04-28T00:00:00Z

Tickets have now gone on sale via EventBrite for RABFest 2026.

Full details can be found on the Reading Amateur Brewers website.

It was a great day last year - we're hoping for an even better one this year!

RABFest 2026 publicity poster

Rhubarb & Gooseberry Sour

2026-04-24T00:00:00Z

Part of the bundle I received when getting the old chest freezer from my in-laws for my keezer build was a large quntity of frozen fruit, which is now occupying a large amount of space in our freezers. This is mainly rhubarb, gooseberry, and backcurrants. Sounds like a lot of sour beer will be in this year's brew schedule!

First off, and using a kilo each of rhubarb and gooseberry, is this recipe. I did a 12l batch last year that went down really well, so this is a scale-up to my normal brew length.

Looking back as I'm writing this up, I used a kilo of each in the 12l batch, so I'm not too sure why I didn't scale the fruit up any for this longer brew... silly me.

Here's the recipe.

Updated 2026-05-10: I kegged this a couple of days ago, and it's tasting really good.

Building my new keezer

2026-04-09T00:00:00Z

I have recently finished building a keezer. Rather than having the details of the build as a blog post that will disappear down the list, I thought it worth a page all of its own, and just have the announcement here.

Hopefully this will be of interest and use to someone!

Here it is.