This morning the team from Albannach were up early and we drove out to our community farm to erect a new Albannach vege patch sign and to spread some organic fertilizer into the ground. The ground was soft as it was lightly raining so we the help of the rotary hoe we easily mixed the fertilizer up in preparation for planting early in August. We have decided to divide our vege patch into sections  and will only use hand the area this year and then next spring we can use the rest for for planting seasonal vegetables. Our next door neighbors herb garden is doing really well, thanks to the fine weather and the automatic sprinkler system !
   

This year Albannach along with Rhino craft beer bar will join Cafe Hocca on their annual trip to Oh La Ho Brewery in Nagano. The bus will pick Niigata craft beer fans up at the Next 21 building from 6.20am and will depart for Cafe Hocca & Rhino before heading to Nagano ken to the scenic Oh La Ho brewery . The total cost for the trip is 14000 yen which includes breakfast on board the bus, hop picking at the brewery, lunch and of course beer !. Included in the fee is 3 cans of their beer and on the return trip we will stop off in Obuse famous for their chestnuts . It's going to be a fantastic trip and your only chance this year to pick hops at a brewery , if you are wanting to attend please contact Albannach before the 10th of August. 

For many years I have wanted to grow my own organic vegetables in Japan , but living in the center of Niigata city I thought this was impossible until recently. One of our customers introduced us to a nearby community farm and we decided to join and recently picked out a space for our own vegetable patch, so over the last 2 weeks we decided on the space we wanted to use and this morning I put the rotary hoe to good use and turned up all the soil in our 3 mtr x 12 mtr vegetable patch. We will divide this patch into different sections and plant vegetables according to the season. First up will be potatoes, cabbage and silver beat ( the later being known as Swiss Chard in Japan ) . Luckily we have found a good online store selling a wide variety of organic seeds and have purchased a few good vegetable farming books. Everybody at the community farm is very helpful and they have all the tools  for everybody to share , plus the entire area is on a automatic sprinker system which makes things a lot easier. Below is a slide show of the farm.

Just arrived at Albannach is the new issue of Japan Beer Times with a New Zealand special featuring Renaissance & Garage Project brewing . Nice to see some NZ craft breweries featured in this great free magazine .   

Red Kite ale finished last night and this morning I have just put on tap Black Isle Goldeneye Pale Ale 5.6% , of course we also have Aspall Suffolk cider still on tap . Here is what the team at Black Isle have to say about their Goldeneye Pale Ale 

A true pale ale.  The full body and rich gold colour comes from a blend of wheat, pale ale and crystal malts.  It's floral and lime citrus nose is created by the extensive use of carefully selected New World aroma hops.  The final stage of dry hopping then produces a rich berry flavour for a big refreshing, satisfying brew.

Winner in the 2012 Soil Association Organic Food Awards.

On tap this week will still have some fantastic Black Isle - Red Kite Ale 4.2%  and just arrived this morning and on tap is Aspall craft cider , this family has been making cider in Suffolk , England since 1728 and now we have it on tap from today. It will be a regular feature on tap all the time from now on so come along and try some as it's the perfect thirst quencher.