Homebrew part 2

Previously on Britain’s worst brewer: our hapless heroine has 40 pints of homebrew quickly developing off-flavours and absolutely nowhere to put it. She is beginning to wonder if she might have screwed up somewhat…

Alright so I timed it badly. Just as I was due to rack my homebrew Wherry into bottles, I left the country for a few days.

My cask was useless without the necessary plastic bits to make it watertight (keystones and shrives if you want to be technical about it), and without the equipment to get the old ones out the new ones were just as useless.

Lesson 1: know what you’re doing.

I did feel a bit guilty about leaving, like I’d left a pet at home without any food. When I returned I feared it might already be too late… It was clear I needed some help.I put in an emergency call to John Braithwaite of Hop and Grape, the number one homebrew retailer in the United Kingdom, and my remote pilot guided me in: “Where is the beer now?” “In a bucket.” “Does it have a tap in the bottom?” “Ummm no.” “There’s your first mistake…” The next day my beer survival kit arrived: one litre plastic bottles, a new fermenting vessel (with a tap) and a nifty gadget called a little bottler which makes siphoning the easiest job in the world.

At this point I made a premature decision to dump half the beer. I admit I rather lost patience with the mammoth task of bottling 25 litres of beer, and at that point it tasted pretty gross...

According to my instructions, the secondary fermentation took two weeks.

I hate waiting. Eight days later I cracked open my first bottle.

It certainly looked like beer, which surprised me: slightly cloudy (evidently needed longer to clear) with a gentle fizz, and poured with a proper beery head. It even tasted like beer, actual beer, which surprised me more. Medium sweet with a floral, almost grapefruit-ish aroma and a warming touch of alcohol (that felt more than the intended 4.5%).

I immediately regretted my earlier decision to pour away half the beer.

Lesson 2: never dump beer. “Age can sort a lot of things out,” said Jeff (of Lovibonds), sagely, when I confessed.

On reflection, I know I’ve hardly done the art of homebrew any justice. But if you’ve never tried it yourself, I heartily encourage you to give it a go!

I’m already thinking about how I could improve… for starters I would bottle it when the primary fermentation had actually finished. I could get a little thermostat to maintain the temperature.

I could get some glass bottles or a proper Cornelius keg. Maybe I could even get some real malt and mash it myself in the kitchen – I could even plant a few hop varieties in the garden! Thinking about it, I might as well get a mash tun, and maybe a couple of fermenting vessels.

Nothing too extravagant, perhaps just a five-barrel brew plant. I wonder if I could put that on expenses….

Then again, maybe not. Too much homebrew and there won’t be time enough to sample the wonderful stuff made by the professionals. Speaking of which, there’ll be quite a few at Beers of the World Live in June. It’s shaping up to be a great event – see you there!

By Sally Toms

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