Back in the seventies, there was a craze for making your own beer and wine. We hadn't been married long, and I was still suffering withdrawal symptoms from rugby and cricket clubs where beer was plentiful and cheap...
While clearing out some junk recently, I've found one of the recipes we used for a beer which was brewed by the Vicar of Bildeston in Suffolk, and published in an article in the Sunday Express in August 1974. He called it Rectory Ale!
We made gallons of the stuff, it really was potent, and although bottling was a hit and miss affair, (often the bottles would expode when the corks were hammered on, which caused me another headache...), in most cases, the brew worked and we could while away the long evenings in mellow stupor for a fraction of what it cost in the pub.
I paid nearly three quid in the pub for a pint (or three), recently, and seeing the headline on this recipe does bring home how pricey things are these days.
I also found how much Rectory Ale cost to make...
It cost 2p per pint...
Update for Hats...Original recipe now on the page; just click on it - phew...
Update for me...The pub shown was my Grandfather's...
In those far off days I was working in the dry lands of the middle east where alcoholic beverages were almost impossible to come by, so whenever anybody had to go to the UK for whatever reason, they always ensured that several tins of home brew beer kits were included in their return luggage. The labels had of course been removed and replaced by something innocent like baby milk powder etc. I never heard of anybody ever being caught by local customs officers and cooperative team work kept the small Brit community amply supplied until the next "vital trip" home was due.
ReplyDeleteMight you publish the recipe, S? Have I missed a blue line to click on? Or are you going to brew some again and just check it is as good as you remember first?
ReplyDeleteI've never made beer, but friends often did and it was usually good, if individual. Poor Mr HG has never recovered from ordering a pint of best in a Midlands pub and taking a huge gulp of mild. It was a shock to the system, he said.
Alas, beer does not like me much these days! I was once poleaxed by half a polystyrene cup of homebrewed cider though. You're in charge of alcohol supplies when it all goes off Scrobbers!
ReplyDeleteWe (=the Tuscana) brew our own real ale here in tuscan the process of which has been significantly advanced by the plastic beer keg I bought in Croatia last month - it is an excellent wood effect, looking like a small sherry barrel. It is a beautiful thnig.
ReplyDeleteNever tried to make my own beer but every other year we make a demijohn of Damson gin.
ReplyDeleteThere is something wonderful about making food or drink from something that's grown in your back garden. It always tastes better than what you buy in the shops.
Morning Nomers...I'd forgotten about that problem - didn't you all make jars of 'just alcohol', (fermented sugar only), and top it up with Coke or something?
ReplyDeleteYou could have used Coca Cola as well if you wanted...
Good yarn!
Hats; I'll try and scan the original in its sellotaped state...
ReplyDelete'Individual' is the correct word! Sometimes it was fantastic, other times we just binned it and started again...
Lils, nothing would give me greater pleasure!
ReplyDeleteThe other week, I mistakenly picked up some 'Citrus Zest Diet' Coke, instead of ordinary 'Diet'. Mrs S was furious, but as I was stuck with the stuff, I tried it with a dash of Gordons...
Abbsolutely marvellous - recommended to break the ice at parties, or anywhere/anything else you might find yourself after a couple or five...
They're great Tuscs, I blew one up, and the other one just faded away years ago...
ReplyDeleteI really think I may just see what's on-line...
Lakes, you're right!
ReplyDeleteI was possibly the last person ever to try Sloe Gin, until I was given a bottle by a chum only a couple of months ago!
Marvellous stuff for the troops that...in fact I've just bought a new bottle and may just pop round the local orchards!
But see above re 'Citrus Zest'; there's no accounting for taste though...
Scrobs - yes, you are right. In the middle of the sand dunes in the dead of night quiet bubbling sounds could be heard as those who knew how brewed up what was known as "Saddiqi" which as I am sure you will know is Arabic for "my friend". A more appropriate name might have been "my gutrot"!!
ReplyDeleteStill, needs must! Talking of which, a BP oilfield camp in the middle of the Abu Dhabian desert had (and for all I know probably still has) a huge machine in the mess canteen that used to churn out several litres of delicious ice cream a day - far more than the crews could possibly get through! Wonderful...!
Sounds like the 4th of July scene in 'The Great Escape' Nomers!
ReplyDeleteThe oddest recipe I ever heard of was tomato and ginger - but then I'm built that way I suppose...
Actually, there is a really great recipe for a home wine which I may well share soon - depends on how much interest there is!
...depends how much interest etc..
ReplyDeletePUBLISH AND BE DAMNED, MAN!!
scroblene...where i am at we made corn whiskey (some still do)...that crap will put you on your ass quicker than a tko from Seth Petruzelli...btw it was an excellent tko last night :)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mmafighting.com/news/2008/10/04/tuf-2-alum-petruzelli-stops-slice-14-seconds
You are welcome to visit me for a beer or three at considerably under 3 quid...
ReplyDeleteDaisers; where we come from, the best punch is a left hook - with a right hand...
ReplyDeleteDepends on how much of the brew you get under the belt, so these guys have something to learn I reckon! ;0)
Muts, I will, I will...
ReplyDeleteJust give me time and the bus fare eh?
...depends how much interest etc..
ReplyDeletePUBLISH AND BE DAMNED, MAN!!
Oh; alright Nomers, as above to Mutters; just give me time - just a few moments of peace to enjoy the evening before I have to get up and start yet again...
I remember making Ouzo and rum here in the 80's and 90's... my dad also made his own beer and we had to help all the damn time!
ReplyDeleteSmackers! Welcome again!
ReplyDeleteWell, it was most important that you helped your Dad do these incredibly important things!
I've even got a scribble by Elder Daught when she was about two, placed betwixt some diary event on trying to get some of these brews to work...
It was always 'de rigeur' to keep a diary of what you did, so's that when things went wrong, you could always say, 'Oh sod it, I didn't add the hops at the right time - bugger', and move on!
You'll have to keep coming back to this story, as Mrs S and I have just discussed anotjher strand...
But this will be another post...
I remember the 70's craze supported by the Goodes and their peapod burgundy. Great post, Scrobs.
ReplyDeleteIn a certain desert place by the Red sea we used to go to a local supermarket and buy unpasturised white or red grape juice by the dozen bottles or so and throw it into a plastic 5gal container fitted with an airlock loaded with suger and a bit of yeast brought from England leave it for a week it was very tasty strangely you could buy a can of what looked like the material that was part of a homebrew kit that could make some nice beer,saddiqi I agree gutrot,the place we had also had a clubhouse with optics somebody bought from home so whisky and gin and rum was definatly not available as that would have been illegal.
ReplyDelete