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I've just got back from a tour of London, Prague and Vienna. I took in the British Beer Festival while there and tried any number of beers on the continent. And on Monday I'm off to the week long Brew Lab course in the University of Sunderland. How much fun can a beer geek have?

You've been busy <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Enjoy Brewlab!

Any pictures?

You luck man a week long course in brew Lab and we want pictures
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I got back late last night form Brewlab. I stayed on for the extra day to do the bottling course but I didn't do my research because there's a microbiology course on today that I would have hung around for.

The course is very enjoyable but a little light on the technical elements for my liking, but it's not academic, it deals with the hands on practical aspects of the British brewing industry. I enjoyed the bottling day more really, because it included bottle conditioning which we do all the time.

What did the bottling course actually entail?

There was a series of lectures similar to the previous three days and also a practical bottling aspect where we got to play with a 20 grand bottling machine while where we bottled 18 gallons of beer that one of the other guys brought along. There was also a microbiology lab where we saw wild yeast and protein matter because of the risk of infection with bottling and lastly a sampling of beer spiked with off flavours that are commonly picked up during bottling. Very interesting and useful.