Our first brew

So, how do you make it? Do you want to try? Honestly, you would not believe how easy it is to come up with a good brew. Seven days, a bit of kit, and a lot of patience is all you need. Look in the directory at the back of this book for a list of top suppliers. The stuff you can get these days is way ahead of the pot noodle in a bucket they sold back in the 70s. Here’s what you need.

Brewing beer is as easy as cooking pasta. If you can boil a kettle and follow a recipe, you can make your own home-brew. The ingredients you need are:

1 Malt Malt is mostly made of barley. The barley will give the whole tone of the beer; it’s the canvas on which you paint your flavours. The colour of the beer is strongly linked to the malt from which it is made.

2 Hops Each type of hop adds a different level and variety of bitterness. Using more than one variety or type of hops add to the depth of flavour of the beer.

3 Yeast This is the ingredient that transforms the sugar in the wort (the liquid) into alcohol, so treat it with respect.

4 Liquor Traditional brewers call water ‘liquor’. And good liquor makes good beer. The most prized water contains happy balances of minerals, particularly calcium, and plays a vital part in brewing beer. At one time, Burton-upon-Trent was home to more than 200 breweries largely because the water supply made it ideal for the production of English ales. Breweries today can adjust almost any water supply to produce just the right balance of minerals.

You’ll also need some basic equipment: 25-litre plastic bucket with lid (the mash tun); bottles and caps; hydrometer (for checking sugars and alcohol strength); thermometer; measuring jugs which can hold more than 20 litres; siphoning tube; fermentation bucket; sanitisers.

Here’s our first brew recipe. And guess what, we thought it was fucking marvellous.