My brewery can get hot as fuck.

It has no ventilation aside from the roller door, and the glycol chiller and coolroom unit vent INSIDE the building. It is not uncommon to rock up in the morning and the internal temperature is 32C, but then it’ll only rise from there during the day.

It’s fine. Sometimes I’ll mash in in my undies. It is sweaty, but I have a safety shower. All good. The tanks have a glycol jacket, so the beer is looked after.

You know what doesn’t have a glycol jacket? Wooden barrels. Which makes aging beer during the summer months kind of impossible.

My solution was to use a couple of little barrel dollies that my friend Benny made. Each night I would roll these full barrels into the coolroom for a little sleep, then each morning I would roll them back out again for a few hours.

While this was a pain in the ass, it dramatically increased the swelling and contracting of the liquid as it fluctuated between a 4c and 35c+ environment daily. I decided to only give it 5 weeks in barrel as I was worried about too much impact, but I am happy with it. I think I can go a bit harder on the next one, which will go into barrel in a couple of weeks.

Enjoy.