How I Learned About Making Alcohol

“Say for what were hop-yards meant?

And why was Burton, built on Trent.”

The words of Housman’s poem returned to me recently when I read that home-brewing is currently undergoing a boom in the UK. I came across an old picture of myself taken in October 1982. Here I can be seen busily pulping apples with a German-made crusher and cider-press. A friend and neighbour Steve Roberts had borrowed this rustic device from a community then living on Osea Island, in the Blackwater estuary. Both he and I had benefited that autumn from having a surfeit of apples. Steve just wanted to make juice. As a regular home-brewer and occasional wine-maker I had rather more ambitious plans

I first became a home-brewer in 1977, when I moved into a garden flat which came with its own shed. I was in my broke mid-20s at this time and stumbled upon a recipe for ‘cottage cider’ in a book of old country recipes. This first attempt almost ended in disaster, when early spring sunlight warmed the shed up and detonated some of the bottles. But the remaining cider didn’t taste too bad. And it did work, once I’d managed to decant it. It looked pretty too, because I’d added slices of beetroot into the brew to colour it. The thing is, old country recipes are all very well, but they don’t give you much science – or safety advice as some call it.

I soon went to the Colchester Home-brew shop for wise instruction. I also studied a book called Brewing Better Beers. It was written by Ken Shales, a former industrial chemist from Basildon, a man whom I came to regard as my guru. The history of home-brewing is interesting. In Britain, from 1880 up until the early 1960s, if you wanted to brew beer at home for your own consumption, you needed a licence to do so. In 1963, the then-Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling changed the law, obviating the need for a licence. The result was a boom in home-brewing.

Most of the people who took it up opted for kits. Back in those early days, Tom Caxton kits were where most people started. They were ‘okay’ you know? A reasonable entry into the craft for improvers like me. But the beer still never seemed quite like pub beer. To be fair, modern kits are many times better I’m told. But back in the mid-70s I wanted something more rootsy.

Thanks to the Colchester home-brew shop and advice from the former military policeman who ran it, I was able to buy malt extract, hops and much other stuff in order to make beer from scratch. After a few weeks of taking in the basic science, I formulated a beer of my own, ‘Newell’s Young and Vicious’ . It was about 4.10% abv and was very much to mine and my friends’ liking. It was a sort of light bottled bitter, with its own particular zippiness.

During those cash-strapped years I was rarely without a few gallons on the go. It made me a popular boy. Except one winter, when my brewing bin was in the airing cupboard. My girlfriend’s treasured chunky-knit white cardigan, fell into it. Completely ruined the beer.

The recently revitalised home-brewing trade, now boasts many modern innovations to make brewing easier. Conversely, the Craft Beer craze of recent years, which seems to have peaked for now, brought a certain nerdiness and gimmickry to what I’ve always regarded as an essentially homespun process: you get your fermentables, you boil them, you pitch your yeast, you wait, you stir it, rack it off the sediment, then bottle or cask it. Maintain scrupulous hygiene throughout, and there’s not much to go wrong. Yet, some men, as is their nature, will often try to complicate these simple things by fiddling.

As for me, I eventually graduated to making lager, wines and even the occasional cautious cider. I confess that cider is a thing I’ve never properly mastered, although I’ve had occasional successes over the years. A cider fermentation is far more violent in the tub than the average beer fermentation. Unlike beer, which begins with a fairy-ring on the wort, then bubbles its way gently into alcohol over a week, a tub of cider will churn away like there’s something nuclear in it. Those West Country boys were better at the job than this Essex lad, I soon concluded. But it didn’t stop me trying.

When I wasn’t out playing gigs, brewing was one of those happy weekend pursuits, which I used to love. A rainy autumn Saturday, the kitchen scented with boiling hops and malt, a racket on the radio, a pint on the table, a roll-up in the ashtray and the young man in his element. As the poet A E Housman concluded:

                   “Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink,

                   For those for whom it hurts to think

                   Look into the pewter pot,

                   To see the world as the world’s not”

                          …………………………………………………….

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PIC: 10th Oct 1982. Working a cider-press. Photo by Steve Robert