Mine is a vintage tale dating back to the late 1940s, not long after World War Two, when beer was scarce indeed. These were the heady days of the ‘six o’clock swill’, when if you didn’t tip the barmaid threepence a drink at the rare hours when the beer was ‘on’, you became invisible and didn’t get another drink.
Bottled beer was a ration of two bottles per week, but only if you were a regular and qualified for a voucher.
My friend Bob and I decided to brew our own to save all the running around from pub to pub, only to find when you got there that the keg had just run out and there was no more. We were single young blokes and Bob’s parents lived at the time in a short street that backed on to the Royal Manly Golf Course.
Bob and I resided in the garage at the back of Bob’s parents’ house, where we set up our own ‘brewery’: two four-gallon kerosene tins with the tops cut out held our special brew. On waking each morning, our first job was to inspect the magic potion and scoop off any mosquito wrigglers that had made their appearance overnight. When we considered it ready to bottle, we did so with the recommended amount of sugar and stored it in the cool under the main house for a couple of weeks.
Approaching the first bottle with some trepidation, we found it was drinkable, which was about the best that could be said of it.
Some well-meaning soul told us to double the sugar in the next batch, because this would give it ‘a bit of a kick’ and make it taste better. So we did just that.
We stored it under the house in the usual manner. However, one night Bob’s mum came down to the garage, woke us and said, ‘Whatever’s going on with your beer I don’t know, but there is a lot of noise. It woke me up. Please go and have a look.’
Sadly, most of our bottles had self-destructed and the area was an unholy mess. That was our last attempt at home-brewing.
Good old days, my eye! Now we can sample wonderful beers from all over the country, all over the world for that matter. I have been fortunate enough to have been able to sample many beers from many countries, without ever having left Sydney and its environs. In my opinion, some of our own beers must rate with the world’s best: Squires, Dogbolter, Moonshine (Victorian) and Balmain Bock (which I hear is no longer brewed), to name only a few which come to mind. Our wonderful brewers in this country have produced lots more which I anticipate tasting before I fall off the perch.