There is nothing crueller than having one of life’s ambitions come to nothing. This week, I have been left bereft after my long-held wish to become a beer baron went as flat as a warm pint of lager.
Brewing your own cheap-but-delicious beer at home is the dream of every proper Kiwi bloke, though for most, it is more a pipe dream. But not for me. When it comes to beer, I believe myself blessed with a wide-ranging knowledge few others are privileged to have.
This is because I have spent 40 years drinking beer. I have drunk beer at home. I have drunk beer away from home. I have drunk beer in all styles and flavours and colours. At times, I have drunk beer until I thought I couldn’t swallow another sip, but then had one more for the road, and fallen asleep in the taxi.
My extensive and expensive research includes beers on a train to Wuhan in China, in the Bugaboo mountains of Canada, in the outback of Australia’s Northern Territory, and in a joint called Murphy’s in the narrow streets of Galway in Ireland. I have toured breweries, and I have been to beer festivals, too.
If I know anything, I know beer. The only fly in my super-hoppy IPA is that I got only 54% in School C chemistry. But who needs book learning when one has such extensive lips-on-glass experience?
So, a month ago, I decided to make my aspiration to be the Prince of Ales a reality. There is no shortage of local businesses flogging home-brewing gear, but I decided to order a “Mangrove Jack’s” starter brewery kit from Brewshop because it was reduced by $15 and promised “learning to brew a decent handcrafted beer at home has never been easier”.
When the impressively heavy box arrived, I gave it to Michele so she could give it to me for my birthday. Imagine my surprise and delight when I unwrapped it. I couldn’t have been happier. But this was the only part of my plan that went to plan.
Opening the box, I was immediately impressed by the gear, though a little confused by the instructions. I decided to read some more guff online, and it was there my dream of being the King of the Kegs began slipping away.
It seems one of the most important parts of brewing is keeping the fermentor at a constant temperature – in this instance, between 20 and 25°C – for up to 10 days until the brew is ready to be bottled.
How exactly does one do that in the middle of a Wairarapa winter, when some nights the temperature falls below zero, and during the day we have difficulty keeping the living room, the place with the fire, at 20°C?
Well, evidently by spending another $170 or so on a heating pad and a fancy temperature controller for the fermenter. But would those be enough in a garage that is sometimes just 10°C? I’m not prepared to spend more money to find out.
So, my dreams of beervana will have to wait until summer, when keeping the fermenter fermenting will be easier. But even then, I may be out of luck. One of the packets of brewing ingredients expires on December 16 – presumably, that’s why the price of the damn kit was reduced.
In the meantime, I have made the two most important decisions a brewer can make. Not what hops or yeast to use, but what to call my brewery and my beer.
The names of most New Zealand beer breweries are dull. They’re either labelled for the place in which they’re based, or given some boring New Zild monicker such as Moa. This sort of thinking is small beer. A brewery’s name should tell you something about the beer. That’s why Auckland’s Epic Beer called itself Epic. This is why I’m calling my brewing company “It’s Awesome, Mate!”, because if I ever succeed in making some beer, it will be awesome, mate, even if it isn’t.
And what will the first ale made at Lush Places be called? Anyone for a pint of Flushed Faces?
