can anybody beer me?

So we’ve got five gallons of beer sitting in a big vat on the dining room floor. We call it the dining room, although we have never dined in it, only danced. More appropriately then, it is the dancing room floor. The beer is sitting there, not yet beer, but becoming beer. It is wrapped in a blanket in an attempt to moderate its temperature. All 26 litres of it are snugly and pleasantly-smellingly awaiting its own fermentation and our consumption. That’s right. 26 litres for two people. Them’s good odds. Unless it tastes like muck, in which case it will be our Christmas gifts for next year sorted. Only 323 shopping days left you know!

The beer has taken pride of place in our lives. We think about it, worry about it, talk to each other about it. We enquire daily of one another, did you stir the beer today? Invariably the answer is no, and then we stir it together.

The first stir was the worst, as the old song goes. We didn’t know that fermenting beer gets over-excited when stimulated with a wooden spoon, and explodes all over the blanket keeping it warm. However now that we know this, we only stir the beer with the gentlest of caresses, like good parents do. But it’s trial and error with these things. You mustn’t judge us too harshly. The beer did not come with a manual. You think you’ll know how to respond to badly behaved beer, but you don’t. And it’s important to remember that every household is different. What works with my beer may not work with yours. And when it comes to preparing and drinking 26 litres of beer, you’ve got to do what’s best for you.