A’Brewin’ I Will Go

I’ve already forgotten how long ago it’s been (I’m thinking on the order of two years since this past Christmas) since I got that Mr. Beer. And, I’ve never used it. This week, as I was moving all my stuff out of the apartment (in the heaviest downpour in the past three months) I rediscovered it in the corner of my closet.

I wondered to myself about how hard or time consuming it would be to actually brew my own beer. Today, I got my chance to find out. A friend of mine was over today, and she saw the thing setting out, and asked me if I was going to use it. I told her that I was going to go to the Liquor Barn to get some mix (I’m not adventurous enough to get the malt and hops separate … This is my first time out) and I hand planned on starting a barrel of it today.

Of course, that’s a sure sign that the mix that works best with the kit I have isn’t sold in my town, so I got something completely different.

The front of the label says, “Irish Ale; Product of Holland.”

On the other side of the label, it says, “Paine’s Malt LTD., Newark, Notts., England.”

I was intrigued, of course. Save for any reference to the Cherokee Nation, my heritage is represented on that label. (I’ve ancestors from the Netherlands and Ireland ... And I’m sitting in a former English colony. Which might have been called “As Far West Virginia as You Can Get Without Ending Up in Missouri” were it not for the decision to use the name the natives had been using for this patch of land.)

Everything in the instruction manual that came with my keg talked about powders. I open this … thing … when I get home and it’s a thick, gooey liquid. (For all I know, though, the Mr. Beer mix is a syrup, too, but in a much smaller container. And, more than likely, mixed differently in some way.)

According to the instructions that came with my keg, the brand I was supposed to be using makes 20 of those 12 ounce bottles. The Dutch/Irish/English Ale makes 36. The Mr. Beer mix asks for one and a half cups of sugar. The other asks for two pounds. The keg holds eight and a half quarts. The Irish Ale is supposed to be brewed in a seven and a half gallon container. My friend and I took out a calculator and tried to figure out how best to fit the mix in to the keg we had. I’ll say that everything looked right after we added the yeast (again, one thing calling for one amount, the other calling for something completely different). And, everything continues to look right … For now. We’ll see how it turns out when I sample the first bottle in a couple of weeks.