The Steamtug Blog

As the hops plant blossoms with a bumper crop of cones, and Queensland is washed away, we continue to beg the skies for rain here in Victoria. I spent a quiet New Year’s eve in Beechworth brewery, helped Tom get his steam truck on the road, tried to catch up with my beer production, and sent a team of underwater hockey juniors down to Tasmania to compete in the Australian National championships where they got smashed by everyone. Read on…

Happy New Year

Beechworth is an old gold mining town on the Northern border of Victoria on the road toward Sydney. I wanted to visit the famous Beechworth brewery there which has a great selection of beers on tap there, and gourmet pizzas to go with it. I found out on my first day there, that they close at 5pm. But none the less, there is a great pub next door that had a live band playing on the last Sunday of the year. They were just a bunch of young kids, 7 in fact and they played some interesting modern new age music. It was very pleasant with a big jar of craft brewed beer in hand.

I found myself back at the brewery every afternoon. It was a great way to wind down after some driving around the country side, a bit of bush walking, etc.  Looking at a tourist booklet about local beers in the area, they mentioned at hops farm in the cool sheltered valley nearby. I looked hard and found the farm and their office. It was just a farm house, and when I knocked on the door, a little old lady informed me that they just grow hops there and send them to Melbourne to be dried and packaged. She could not sell me any over the door. But she did tell me that they were growing “galaxy” which is a new variety bred right here in Victoria and used in pale ales because of the citrus kind of flavour it gives the beer, and very strong so you don’t need much. I thought it would be nice to say I got these hops on my holiday, but I guess I will have to try later.

Geelong Vintage Rally

I helped Tom to finally get his truck going, and we spent the first weekend of January driving around the bitumen roads at the showgrounds. He told us to give it a good thrashing to see what was going to break so we could fix it now during it’s trials. But nothing did break! And the Friday before the vintage rally, I rolled up after work before Tom got there, and Philip had the truck fired up and with a big smile on his face said he had a surprise for Tom. He pulled out of the back of his car, the registration plates which would enable us to drive out on the roads! Tom’s eyes popped out of his head when we gave them to him. We didn’t expect to get these for another month or two.

So without hesitation, Tom bolted the plates on the truck and with Tom driving, me firing the boiler and Philip sitting in the middle, we did a right hand turn instead of left, and out onto the public road! We went straight into the city centre of Geelong in peak hour traffic, down around the waterfront, waving to all the girls as we went. Some people looked with amazement as we passed while others just went about there business and didn’t even notice us. Coming back we were loosing fuel pressure and I was starting to struggle to keep the steam pressure up. Then we had a sudden change of traffic lights and the old truck locked up the solid rubber rear tyres and left 4 long skid marks on the road. We all laughed our heads off as the truck finally stopped just before the lights a little sideways.

It’s a handful to fire, because the boiler only has a tea cup of water inside (well actually about 200 litres) but the steam pressure goes up and down quite quickly and the water can disappear out the top of the gauge glass when accelerating, and then disappear out the bottom when you shut the steam off in a hurry. So it’s a challenge to fire. Then the draught for the fire is made by the engine exhaust, so taking off I need to crank on lots of fuel flow into a combustion chamber the size of a big wheel barrow, then when the steam goes off I have to back it down quickly to avoid lots of black smoke, and not go to far so the fire goes out. Whew… I will get used to it eventually. But it also can be a trap because it’s so quiet! When the regulator is pulled open, a quiet hiss fills the cylinders with steam and then she just glides slowly forward, bursting into a run, and all in complete silence! You could be leaning against the tray talking to someone, lean forward to scratch your knee and lean back again to find it’s gone. And you would never hear it go!

Bikes!

I got the old Triumph out of the shed, gave it a wash and a thrash around the block. Then I rode it to work just for something different. I bet those Harley boys in the car park would have been looking at her when they arrived for work. Fortunately I have a “velcro” number plate. It fits from one red Triumph, onto another red Triumph… saying that, I must get around to joining a club and get her registered one day. But I’m just happy to sit in the shed and look at her exquisit beauty as I sip my beer.

More beer!

Another job has been on my mind when I look at the 2 empty kegs of beer outside my garage door. What with Goofa’s wedding and the Christmas and Merry new Beer season, I just don’t seem to be able to catch up! So I spent a long hard day brewing the other day. Finally I got a keg filled, and drinking a few beers while I was working, managed to empty the keg I had on tap. So at the end of a hard working day in the brewery, I walked out brushing the dust of my hands, only to look back and see 2 empty kegs still outside the garage door! Grrrrrr….