British Brewer

Recreating the perfect British Pint

03 December
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A taste of home

My copy of “Brew Your Own British Real Ale” arrived in the post yesterday (thanks to the wonders of Amazon Prime and free 2-day shipping).  I got an early start at the book after finding the ONLY chair at the YMCA in Hanover put out for parents to watch their little ones hit (or not) tennis balls at each other around the court.

My first impressions of the book are positive.  The science is thorough, the technique is strong and I am learning new stuff on every page.  I also like the use of quotations at the beginning of every chapter, something I have never seen used in a homebrew book before.  A couple made me stop and reflect and I thought I would share.

From the beginning of the “About” chapter:

There is a nice old-fashioned room at the “Rose and Crown” where bargees and their wives sit of an evening drinking their supper beer, and toasting their supper cheese at a glowing basketful of coals that sticks out into the room under a great hooded chimney and is warmer and prettier and more comforting than any other fireplace I ever saw.  There was a pleasant party of barge people around the fire.  You might not have thought it pleasant, but they did; for they were all friends or acquaintances, and they liked the same sort of things, and talked the same sort of talk.  This is the real secret of pleasant society.  – E. Nesbit, The Railway Children, 1906

and finally the quotation used at the beginning of the first chapter:

Cenosilicaphobia – The fear of an empty glass.  -Anonymous

a horrible thought and something I may need to get tested for, this is why I have the ESB in the keg.

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