HOME BREWING
That’s the trouble with making really good wine. You end up drinking far more of it than you normally would, and enthusiastically uncork a bottle of your finest “Chateau Boots 1992 (August)” at the merest excuse for a celebration: Trafalgar Day (Oct 21st); Andy has changed his sheets and it’s not even half-term; a broken engagement; it’s Friday…
I made some Elderflower Cordial in the summer but the white wine vinegar must have set off a fermentation and it has ended up as a rather lethal Elderflower Champagne.
So I thought I’d go back to my working class roots and make beer instead. It hangs on the back of my lounge door in a distended polythene bladder, which dispenses frothy, cloudy, malty, lukewarm ale. It’s so strong that I have to water it down, and the enormous pressure the gases produce makes me fear an industrial accident. Imagine the headline: “Bible College Students in Exploding Still Debacle!”
Jesus spoke about the new wine of the kingdom exploding out of old wineskins - the religious constraints of his day - and the church has constantly struggled with Jesus’ twin demands to take up our cross, and to live life to the full. It is an embarrassment to some over-pious Christians that Jesus’ very first miracle was helping his mum out at a wedding party, where he turned 150 gallons of water into wine. The church has been trying to turn it back into water ever since. That’s the trouble with making really good wine.
Woman Alive monthly column
