The Home-made Buzz------Brewing

Every now and then I get a burr going for producing my own drinkable beverages, sometimes out of historical interest, other times for sustainable possibilities, and others just to have cheap booze. I've gone at it from a number of directions with what  might be described as marginal success.

Some say the marginal part is because I am basically a slob and I don't clean my equipment well enough, while other simply pass the operation off as being ill-conceived and amateurish. In other words, it is thought I just don't know what the hell I am doing. I will point out that most of the beverages I have produced have been consumed, thus there has been some success even though it might be noted that I also readily devour road kill.

None of this slanderous talk about my performance has ever been taken seriously by me because I just don't care and there has been enough very consumable results to justify my efforts. I write off the critics as losers, self-absorbed buffoons, gaped-toothed mouth breathers unfamiliar with all the great poets and writers who were slobbering drunks. This includes Thomas, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Joyce, Faulkner and Ayn Rand (a cherry horse). I hardly even ( well, not that much) drink which might be a problem with my writing. I am on my way.

I am back at it in any case and have a rather solid, all-encompassing operation going in the kitchen. My first effort was a nice Pinot wine that even Ann has said deserves at least a 7.5 on any scale. It taste like the French snooty blends and only at $2 a bottle. I did purchase the grapes and didn't use the collected stuff in the back yard again.

So following that over-whelming success I set out to do a 10 gallon beer batch using only malted barley and the advice of a close associate who I won't mention due to his affiliation with a rough element---and it is not the KKK again.

The batch is in three carboys and doing nicely even though at yesterday's bottling (and sampling) I found my personal judgement on the product as being "pedestrian". In truth, that is what I wanted. I needed a lighter beer, something for the summer were a couple of very cold brews is in line rather than some heavy, crafty beer that makes me sleep, if not see the Baby Jesus after two. It is in the bottle at this very moment getting fissed up and ready for some tossing back in a couple of weeks.

I'm thinking I might have some real sustainable drinking developing right here in the Midwest, at a very reasonable price. Just right for the revolution.