Wednesday 26 May 2010

Brewing our own...

Part of the point of getting an allotment, not to mention a greenhouse (which I know I promised you an update on, it's coming, honest), was to become as self sufficient as possible when it comes to vegetables. We're still some way from that dream (mainly thanks to our own failings rather than the impossibility of the aim) but it has made us think about other things we could provide for ourselves. Top of that list has been, rather predictably for those who know us, booze.

We'd talked about trying to brew our own alcohol a while back but nothing ever really came of it, however, at the start of this year I purchased a home brewing beer kit on impulse and it's kind of taken off from there. Now our spare room has been all but converted into a brew room and the first fruits of our labours have matured to the point of drinking.

We've had a go at both beer and wine so far, both from kits, with the first keg of beer (Woodfordes Wherry) now clear and ready to drink while the wine (Beaverdale Merlot) is safely bottled and maturing. We've also got a few gallons of parsnip wine brewing happily away made from the last of our parsnip harvest and a second beer (Woodfordes Admiral Reserve) should find its way into a fermenting bin over the weekend.
While the act of brewing itself has been a hugely enjoyable exercise I have to say I wasn't quite sure what to expect taste wise when it was all ready. So far however, I've been pleasantly surprised. The Wherry, described as a 'session ale', is worryingly drinkable and wouldn't seem out of place in my local. The Merlot too isn't bad either, although the bottle we tried was still perhaps a bit too young as its recommended that wine should be left to mature for over six months.
This summer we're planning to try brewing some other wines from either home grown fruit (a strawberry wine is top of our list...) or foraged goodies from around the local area. It'd be nice in the future to move away from kit beers into full grain brewing too but that’s quite a leap in terms of skill, equipment and time from what I've read so we'll perhaps hold off on that for a while.
So far though, our new brewing adventure is all going really well.

5 comments:

dee said...

Not a beer drinker myself, unless its watered down to an inch of its life with lemonade.
I'm going to try making rhubarb wine this year..

Nome said...

I'd love to try making wine someday, when we have a bit more space. And cider! And I'm sure Eddie would insist we tried beer too...

I used to go out with my Dad picking elderberries and dandelions for wines. I never got to try any of course but he certainly seemed to enjoy himself!

Jo said...

It certainly looks the business. Sounds like you'll have lots of fun trying out different flavoured wine.

nommo said...

I made a rather quaffable elderberry and blackberry wine last year - I tried to make a record on my occasionally updated blog (ha! infrequently really!), we ended up drinking 9l of it decanted straight out of the demijohns over christmas, but managed to get one bottle maturing ;)

I will be doubling up this year - more if I can find the berries!

I also got a beer brew kit from the guys at work, but havent got around to starting that off...

LENA said...

Thank you for sharing. Wonderful post. I appreciate it.