I still remember being about 18 or 19 or so, when my first ever girlfriend’s dad decided to give me the best birthday (or was it Christmas, it didn’t matter) gift that a young man could ever receive: a home brew kit. I’d proudly bring my delicious brews to parties and friends’ places. They were always greatly appreciated and I felt like the most popular boy in town. My secret: making beer is easy and, unless you mess up real bad, home brew almost always tastes way better than store-bought beer.
When we moved north, Faye and I thought about bringing beer brewing equipment, but decided that since it was a mostly-dry town, we didn’t want to develop a reputation as brewers. After a few months here we realised that it wasn’t such a big deal, so started making our own ginger beer using just local store-bought sugar and ginger.
Well, we’ve evolved.
Last time we went south Faye brought back a DIY kit beer. It’s got everything you need to brew a basic beer in one handy transportable box.
These kits are basically liquid malt extract (i.e., the sugars out of barley, minus most of the water) pumped full of hop-extract. We used our tiny carboy to transform the kit into beer and shared it with our friends.
People seemed to like it, but I was not impressed. It tasted chemical-y, like cheap mass-produced beer or the kind of beer you serve at $1/glass near universities to draw in crowds of poor penny-pinching students. I’d made home brew before, and this was not the good stuff.
So, we ditched the kit and ordered a bunch of raw(-ish) ingredients.
We’ve used them to make a couple of brews so far. The first was a very hoppy ale (almost an IPA). It was super super delicious and we just drank the last bottle today.
The ingredients for our second brew were chosen by Faye’s mum Joyce when she was visiting. She munched on all the grains, quickly spat out the hops (tee hee) and made her pronouncements.
Brew 2 “Joyce’s Ale” has just been bottled now and should be ready for drinking next weekend. It’s an almost-hopless wheat ale, very very light in flavour, with a creamy head. I’m thinking of maybe adding some apricot extract flavoring to it to make it a fruity summer beer.
Because our carboy is small we brew in just 10-litre batches, which also keeps us within the town’s alcohol possession limits. The basic procedure goes like this:
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Step 4:
Step 5:
Step 6:
Step 7:
Step 8:
