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Maybe i go scrumping for more apples this year to try and build up a backlog......
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We all need to reach "Critical Mass"! This being enough of what you fancy to allow you to pick and choose what you make next and what you lay down for the future.
Get out there and get more apples on!
I usually say "There's nothing worse than finding out that the last bottle lifted from the shelf tastes better than the other thirty-nine!" It's a great mantra for Conditioning a brew for many weeks, months or even years.
However, recent experience has taught me that there is a "nothing worse" and that is keeping a wonderful brew until it goes past its "Sell-By" date and tastes foul.
The only way you can avoid the latter is by experimentation. Personally, (as a Rule of Thumb), I drink brews with an ABV less than 5.5% within a year and only lay down brews above 5.5%ABV for a year or more.
Enjoy!
PS
Aged about eight, I was up this tree throwing apples down to my mate when it all went quiet below! I looked through the foliage and all I could see was a pair of shiny-black boots. The man attached to the boots was Bobby Oliver and rather foolishly, I decided to drop down the other side of the tree and make a run for it.
As soon as my feet hit the ground I was running to the sound of "I see'd yer! I know who you are!" a phrase that struck terror into every kid in the village. I carried on and leapt the orchard fence like a young gazelle. Unfortunately, I didn't quite clear the fence and finished up hanging by my shorts from the top strand of the fence which happened to be barbed-wire.
Bobby Oliver ambled over "What's your name boy?" (So much for "I know who you are!" eh!), I told him and then went through the following (please bear in mind that I was hanging from the fence with four barbs firmly lodged in my buttocks as well as my shorts):
- "Do you want a Summons?" I didn't know what a "Summons" was but the answer was "No."
- "Do you want me to tell you Dad?" Absolutely and definitely a "No!"
- "Do you want me to tell your Mam?" This was the kicker! Despite four wounds in my backside I had four rips in my shorts and I was due a hammering anyway. Being dragged home by Bobby Oliver would make it ten times worse so yet another heartfelt "Nooo!"
- "Well, there's only one thing left ain't there?" I nodded and I can still feel the the crack across the back of my skull as he inflicted the "only thing left" with an amazingly hard hand!
Bobby Oliver had the decency to lift me off the fence (on the right side for me) and let me go with a warning of "And don't let me catch you here again!"
Needless to say, I got a genuine hammering when I got home for the rips in my shorts. (The rips were darned and the shorts were put back into service the next day!)
However, the most surprising thing happened about 60 years after this incident. I was talking to my mate (the one who had done a runner) and he said "Yes, I remember that. Me and David loved going scrumping with you because we could always outrun you; and we knew that you'd never tell on us!"
So much for friends eh?
