My Dad started it all the day he came back from the 1955 Motor Show at Earl’s Court excitedly waving a piece of paper. ‘Look what I’ve been given’ he said, ‘a recipe for making beer at home!’ ‘I thought that was illegal’ said Mum. ‘Well it is really, but the chap who gave this to me said it’s fine as long as you take sensible precautions, and always call it ‘homebrew’ and never ‘beer’.’
At 21 I had not the same enthusiasm for beer as my father, but read the carbon-copied page out of interest. Ingrediedients to make 5 gallons of Pale Ale: 3 x 2lb jars Malt, 1 x1lb tin Golden Syrup, 4 x 2lb bags Granulated Sugar, 3oz Hops, 2oz Baker’s Yeast. A recipe for Brown Ale was identical, except for the Golden Syrup being replaced by Black Treacle. The scant instructions said to put the hops in a muslin bag, and boil everything except the yeast up in as much water as possible for half an hour. When cool remove the hops, tip the rest into a glazed earthenware bread crock, make up to 5 gallons with cold water, and when at blood heat or cooler cream up the yeast and add that. Put somewhere warm, skimming off any dirty yeast with a wooden spoon, then after a week siphon into pint beer bottles containing a teaspoon of sugar. Leave at least a fortnight before drinking.
It all seemed simple enough, and Dad decided to have a go. We had an old bread crock, which Mum used to lay up eggs painted with waterglass during the war, and 40 bottles were collected from a pub for the price of their deposit. Both malt and hops were kept by Boots the Chemist, the former to feed to growing children, and the latter kept in a pharmacy drawer alongside senna pods and the like, it being used to make hop-tea for purifying the insides of the elderly, and helping them sleep.
Dad’s contact had impressed on him that he shouldn’t buy the malt and hops at the same time, in case some busybody suspected he was making beer, and reported the matter to Customs and Excise. In fact it was better if two different people bought them, so Mum was sent off to buy the malt – with instructions not to get the type with cod liver oil added – and Dad sauntered in later to get the brown paper bag of hops.
I kept a low profile that evening while ‘The House Smells Like a Brewery’ scenario was played out, but the whole family was united next morning, gazing in awe at the tentacles of brown flecked foam rising from the crock, reminiscent of a scene from the Quatermass Experiment. The end product could best be described as ‘an acquired taste’.
Once around the sun found me living in a boarding house in Huddersfield, while training to be a draughtsman at David Brown’s gearbox works. The landlord was a keen wine maker, and hearing of my Dad’s new hobby said I could use his large cellar if I fancied having a go myself. Beer having moved up a notch in my interests, I borrowed Dad’s bread crock when home for Christmas, to mother’s delight and his insistence it was back by Easter. Following the instructions to the letter the first brew was drunk – no, that should read ‘forced between clenched teeth’ but the next and last went down the drain as it was vinegary. With no mention of sterilising this wasn’t surprising, but the episode provided the Brownie Point of being able to say my first brew was in 1956. (To be continued)
At 21 I had not the same enthusiasm for beer as my father, but read the carbon-copied page out of interest. Ingrediedients to make 5 gallons of Pale Ale: 3 x 2lb jars Malt, 1 x1lb tin Golden Syrup, 4 x 2lb bags Granulated Sugar, 3oz Hops, 2oz Baker’s Yeast. A recipe for Brown Ale was identical, except for the Golden Syrup being replaced by Black Treacle. The scant instructions said to put the hops in a muslin bag, and boil everything except the yeast up in as much water as possible for half an hour. When cool remove the hops, tip the rest into a glazed earthenware bread crock, make up to 5 gallons with cold water, and when at blood heat or cooler cream up the yeast and add that. Put somewhere warm, skimming off any dirty yeast with a wooden spoon, then after a week siphon into pint beer bottles containing a teaspoon of sugar. Leave at least a fortnight before drinking.
It all seemed simple enough, and Dad decided to have a go. We had an old bread crock, which Mum used to lay up eggs painted with waterglass during the war, and 40 bottles were collected from a pub for the price of their deposit. Both malt and hops were kept by Boots the Chemist, the former to feed to growing children, and the latter kept in a pharmacy drawer alongside senna pods and the like, it being used to make hop-tea for purifying the insides of the elderly, and helping them sleep.
Dad’s contact had impressed on him that he shouldn’t buy the malt and hops at the same time, in case some busybody suspected he was making beer, and reported the matter to Customs and Excise. In fact it was better if two different people bought them, so Mum was sent off to buy the malt – with instructions not to get the type with cod liver oil added – and Dad sauntered in later to get the brown paper bag of hops.
I kept a low profile that evening while ‘The House Smells Like a Brewery’ scenario was played out, but the whole family was united next morning, gazing in awe at the tentacles of brown flecked foam rising from the crock, reminiscent of a scene from the Quatermass Experiment. The end product could best be described as ‘an acquired taste’.
Once around the sun found me living in a boarding house in Huddersfield, while training to be a draughtsman at David Brown’s gearbox works. The landlord was a keen wine maker, and hearing of my Dad’s new hobby said I could use his large cellar if I fancied having a go myself. Beer having moved up a notch in my interests, I borrowed Dad’s bread crock when home for Christmas, to mother’s delight and his insistence it was back by Easter. Following the instructions to the letter the first brew was drunk – no, that should read ‘forced between clenched teeth’ but the next and last went down the drain as it was vinegary. With no mention of sterilising this wasn’t surprising, but the episode provided the Brownie Point of being able to say my first brew was in 1956. (To be continued)