HOMEBREW:
POISON, OR PERFECTION?
A true storey by Tigger.
“Would you like a drink?”
Ahhh, what a welcome question! An easy one to
answer. I had just donated 2 hours of my time giving free
advice to some friends on their garden design, in exchange
for alcoholic refreshment: I leave the quality and quantity
to their discretion, depending upon how useful they feel my
pearls of wisdom will be in transforming the dog toilet/exercise
yard into a sub-tropical oasis.
“We only have homebrew”.
Eager anticipation evaporated. Obviously they
were disappointed with my ‘U-beaut better-than-backyard-blitz’
garden makeover ideas. With resignation, bordering on desperation,
I agreed to a glass of Graham’s lager, (which I knew
he made himself because he couldn’t possibly afford
the genuine article in the vast quantities he needed to sustain
his drinking habit). I knew all about homebrew, how it could
snare the unwary with its mouth-puckering bitterness, how
an improperly fermented brew could make an alcoholic gag,
and how an imperfect airlock could give you 10 gallons of
a liquid most frequently associated with pickled onions. I
knew them all. I’d made them all. In fact, as a teenager
embarking on a brewing career, I had never made one that was
any good to drink, (although all were good enough to take
to BYO grog parties, as long as I was able to discreetly abandon
my contribution and hoe into someone else’s unattended
offering).
In hindsight I realise now why my brewing career
failed in it’s infancy: the equipment I had at my disposal
was inferior and extremely cheap. I am very well aware of
the old adage ‘a poor workman blames his tools’,
but my gear was made from inexpensive household items that
I managed to pinch from under the very nose of my guileless
parents. My fermenting bucket was a dustbin liner inserted
into Granny’s Birko Boiler, with a length of ‘twist-&-tie’
garden wire to seal the brew from the elements. I kept this
contraption in my bedroom and went to sleep each night intoxicated
by the sickly smell of fermenting alcohol, plagued by swarms
of fruit flies, which had miraculously materialised through
double glazing and a locked door. It will be no surprise that
the beer I produced was terrible, and although I lost at least
50% of the bottled beer from chain-reactive explosion, I was
still hard-pressed to shift the remainder. It didn’t
win me any friends, but it certainly brought a sleek lustre
to my hair! (external application only).
So it was with genuine astonishment, as I took a tentative
sip from the glass proffered by my hostess, that I found,
instead of having to edge surreptitiously towards the nearest
pot plant, I managed to imbibe several tallies of the concoction
before modesty intervened and I was saved from embarrassing
myself (again).
Let this be a lesson to you. Instead of homebrew
being the hidden horror, it can, if prepared by someone other
than a desperate adolescent teenage girl with hormone problems,
become an enticing beverage worthy of praise. So I would genuinely
like to bestow a smile of encouragement to all of you who
are seriously considering homebrew as a means of sustaining
your drinking problem. Not only does it have obvious economic
advantages, but whilst you crack open yet another stubby of
your home-made amber liquid, secretly delighting in its rich,
mellow flavour, the timely heart-wrenching sigh and melancholy
glance will lead your partner to believe that you are truly
making a great sacrifice, and love you all the more for it!
A true storey by Tigger.
“Would you like a drink?”
Ahhh, what a welcome question! An easy one to
answer. I had just donated 2 hours of my time giving free
advice to some friends on their garden design, in exchange
for alcoholic refreshment: I leave the quality and quantity
to their discretion, depending upon how useful they feel my
pearls of wisdom will be in transforming the dog toilet/exercise
yard into a sub-tropical oasis.
“We only have homebrew”.
Eager anticipation evaporated. Obviously they
were disappointed with my ‘U-beaut better-than-backyard-blitz’
garden makeover ideas. With resignation, bordering on desperation,
I agreed to a glass of Graham’s lager, (which I knew
he made himself because he couldn’t possibly afford
the genuine article in the vast quantities he needed to sustain
his drinking habit). I knew all about homebrew, how it could
snare the unwary with its mouth-puckering bitterness, how
an improperly fermented brew could make an alcoholic gag,
and how an imperfect airlock could give you 10 gallons of
a liquid most frequently associated with pickled onions. I
knew them all. I’d made them all. In fact, as a teenager
embarking on a brewing career, I had never made one that was
any good to drink, (although all were good enough to take
to BYO grog parties, as long as I was able to discreetly abandon
my contribution and hoe into someone else’s unattended
offering).
In hindsight I realise now why my brewing career
failed in it’s infancy: the equipment I had at my disposal
was inferior and extremely cheap. I am very well aware of
the old adage ‘a poor workman blames his tools’,
but my gear was made from inexpensive household items that
I managed to pinch from under the very nose of my guileless
parents. My fermenting bucket was a dustbin liner inserted
into Granny’s Birko Boiler, with a length of ‘twist-&-tie’
garden wire to seal the brew from the elements. I kept this
contraption in my bedroom and went to sleep each night intoxicated
by the sickly smell of fermenting alcohol, plagued by swarms
of fruit flies, which had miraculously materialised through
double glazing and a locked door. It will be no surprise that
the beer I produced was terrible, and although I lost at least
50% of the bottled beer from chain-reactive explosion, I was
still hard-pressed to shift the remainder. It didn’t
win me any friends, but it certainly brought a sleek lustre
to my hair! (external application only).
So it was with genuine astonishment, as I took a tentative
sip from the glass proffered by my hostess, that I found,
instead of having to edge surreptitiously towards the nearest
pot plant, I managed to imbibe several tallies of the concoction
before modesty intervened and I was saved from embarrassing
myself (again).
Let this be a lesson to you. Instead of homebrew
being the hidden horror, it can, if prepared by someone other
than a desperate adolescent teenage girl with hormone problems,
become an enticing beverage worthy of praise. So I would genuinely
like to bestow a smile of encouragement to all of you who
are seriously considering homebrew as a means of sustaining
your drinking problem. Not only does it have obvious economic
advantages, but whilst you crack open yet another stubby of
your home-made amber liquid, secretly delighting in its rich,
mellow flavour, the timely heart-wrenching sigh and melancholy
glance will lead your partner to believe that you are truly
making a great sacrifice, and love you all the more for it!
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