Good morning!
Yesterday was Bill’s birthday so we spent the day as he wanted to. Up around 8:30am, a bit of breakfast, and then out to take care of the horses – Spirit the pony, Jack, and Kato. Alfie and Dylan (the resident lab-lurcher mix dogs) and Coco (visiting cockapoo) went out to help too. I got to sweep out their stalls and shovel hay mixed with horse pee and poo, and wheelbarrow it to the ‘compost’ pile. Also put their breakfast in their stalls, and accompanied them with Bill leading the way out to the pasture, where they stayed for the day.
Once we got that done, we came in to the house got ourselves together, and took the dogs for a walk. We walked along the edge of a parsnip/turnip field. It wasn’t raining at the beginning, but started to at the end. Luckily Anthea had an extra pair of ‘Wellies’ for me to wear because it was really muddy!
Oakfrith Wood
In the afternoon we went for a tour of the Wadworth Brewery in Devizes. Prior to the tour we had a ‘pint and a pie’ ; I had a veggie pie (note the “V” on the pie). With it I had the Swordfish IPA (6X IPA with rum mixed in – 22 bottles per big ‘tub’ if I remember right. And tub isn’t the right word – maybe vat would be more correct).
Safety first! We all wore these
Got to taste some dry hops
Mash Tun
Yeast Vat
The brewery was visited recently by Prince Charles – I was practically standing in his same spot!
The Public Houses (Pubs) here are each individually owned by a brewery. All of the Signs for the Wadworth Pubs are painted by hand!
This one is obviously ‘in-progress’
We also toured their microbrewery – essentially one room. They microbrew new brews that they are trying out, so if the ‘try’ isn’t a success, they haven’t made a ton of it. One of the microbrews we tried was ‘Perfect 10.’ Really good!
Wadworth Microbrewery
Then it was tasting time!
This room serves as both a pub (where we had our ‘pint and pie’) and the room where we did our beer tasting:
Our tasting was in this order:
IPA, 6X IPA, Swordfish IPA (6X with rum added), Old Timer, Perfect 10, and Brewer’s Strength (AKA Henry’s Special) IPA/APA, Corvus Stout.
The IPAs here do not taste like the IPAs in the states, but the special IPA/APA tasted very similar to Sierra Nevada IPA. All of the beers were pretty tasty. I liked the Swordfish and the Brewer’s Strength ones the best. The stout was decent too.
All in all it was a decent tour – lasted over 2 hours! And we were able to visit many rooms in the brewery that I’m pretty sure we would not have been able to do equivalently in the US, so that was a plus.
We got home after the tasting, had a spot of tea and some crisps, and then it was time to bring the horses in from pasture, and get them fed.
By happenstance I was looking up at the sky while we were doing that and I saw the International Space Station fly by ! I noticed a light moving in the sky, but it was moving differently than a plane. And it also flew completely out of sight away from me, as opposed to outside my line of sight. I’ve see the ISS before, so sort of knew how it moved. So, when we were done I came in the house and looked it up, and sure enough, it was the ISS! Way cool! It’s passing by tonight too, about an hour earlier than last night, so we should see it again!
After that it was leftovers and telly – another great day. We watched Silent Witness. This show is in two parts, one part one night and the other part the next night. Very similar to a “CSI” type show. Good so far – can’t wait to find out what happens tonight!
Keep warm – talk soon!