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It’s been a while, but I did some brewing this week! It’s something that has fallen by the wayside for me as of late, in terms of an active hobby. In fact, the last time I brewed any beer was September!
I would put this down to three reasons:
1. No ES&CASG weekend on the horizon, and threat of a £2000 beer bill.
2. An attempt to drink less generally, and constantly having 60lt of beer sitting upstairs wasn’t doing me any favours.
3. Just a severe lack of time. September also coincides with when I started dedicating a majority of my free time to training.
The last point is actually probably the most important - when you hop beer, i.e. boil it for over an hour, it is just a time consuming process. There is preparation work, and then you have to allow about 4 hours to cool it down too, so it’s not something that can be done on an evening. Plus, Heidi has been very sensitive to the smell, what with her pregnancy hormones (reason #4). There was also an unfortunate episode where my last brew broke our hob due to the high heat for an extended period of time (reason #5).
So, I went back to my roots this week and just made a kit beer (with fresh yeast of course). The kit of choice was a Munton’s Smugglers Ale - it is rumoured to be one of the best kits available.
I’ll report back in a few weeks when it is ready.
Brew Dog