Drunk!

Sob, boohoo, wrings out handkerchief in sorrow – I didn’t win the Bloggers Brew Competition! But boy, did I have fun along the way. Apparently the judges were looking for something which matched what it said on the tin – German Lager – and since I had added lots of extra grains and hops and turned my Secret Armadillo into more of an ale, I guess I was always going to be on a hiding to nothing!

But I’ve totally loved it and would do it again (and, indeed, will be doing it again) in a heartbeat. Congrats to Tank Lanning whose Front Row Grunt Brew was declared the winner – and in fact, congrats to us all, because I tasted them all last night and I think there were some pretty smart brews on show. I would go so far as to say that the 9 beers I tasted last night as a group were actually MUCH better than plenty of the 50 or so which I tasted at the Cape Town Festival of Beer last year when I was a judge. And those ones were for sale as well! There’s hope for us all.

So many thanks to Nash and Martin for organising the contest, SAB for hosting us and Tracy Fraser who designed my lovely label. I don’t think the Secret Armadillo is dead, he’s just sleeping and waiting to be resurrected in another brew. And that is certainly going to happen, courtesy of my final and biggest thank you to Lynnae Endersby of Beerlab who is a total star and absolutely deserves the title I have bestowed on her of Queen of Homebrewing. She’s published dates for her next beer schools next year – www.beerlab.co.za – and I cannot recommend her and her courses highly enough.

If you haven’t got your tickets to Cape Town Festival of Beer yet, please do so cos it’s going to be a riot. You can get your tickets from www.webtickets.co.za and I’ll see some of you there on Saturday – the Secret Armadillo may be with me if you catch me and him early enough!!

Oh God – I’ve just realised I only have one week to go until JUDGEMENT DAY for my beer. Actually, I’m not too worried about the beer itself – only concern at the moment is how to stop my husband ‘trying’ yet another bottle – but I don’t have a label.

I do have a name however. Thank you so much to all of you for your suggestions and abject, grovelling apologies that I am such an idiot, I didn’t realise I had to moderate all your comments. If it makes you feel any better, I was very sad because I thought none of you loved me. But now that I know you all do – thanks for the ideas, but I’ve come up with something else!

The thing is that you all came up with some very cool suggestions but there were a couple of problems. First one is my name – Marston’s is actually quite a well-known brewery in the UK (I married my husband thinking he was part of the family. Another hope bites the dust) so I can’t really use that. And then all the wine-connection ones were hilarious and very clever, but unfortunately, when I googled them, a lot have already been taken. And without wishing to aggrandise one small batch of home-brew in Cape Town, I don’t want to get into an international intellectual property intrigue, thank you very much.

So I have decided that my beer is going to be named Secret Armadillo Beer. For a few reasons. Firstly, I’m hoping the initials will appeal to the judges and give me bonus points. Secondly because I am a HUGE fan of Phineas and Ferb – if you don’t have kids, do yourself a favour and watch it anyway cos it is awesome – and I feel that the Secret Armadillo and Perry the Platypus could be best friends forever.

Thirdly because there is this COOL advert from my childhood which I really wanted to give a run-out for you all to enjoy. Harry Enfield at his finest.

And lastly because it is such a random name. And random – in my book – is good.

So I need a label please. If you take a look at the competition, you will see I need a bloody good label actually – check out Nash, Natalie and Savage here Life is Savage and Bangers and Nash.

I feel a cartoon of an armadillo with a Zorro mask might be just the thing, but whatever it is – I have 4 tickets to give away, plus God knows what other goodies I may unearth, for the right label design. So please – post me a link below or email me on cathy@cathymarston.co.za and help me get over this final hurdle!

It’s done! My die is cast, my shot is taken, my goose is cooked and my hand is shown. And that’s quite enough clichés for a Sunday morning. Yes, I finally put my beer in the bottles and now all I can do is sit and wait. And since there is little I or anyone can do about it now, I thought I’d reveal the source of all my secrets – the amazing Lynnae Endersby from Beer Lab.

Lynnae set up her business quite recently following a lay-off from Media24 (I love it when people use redundancy as a springboard to act on their dreams. Got me to SA and that was the best thing I ever did) and since she turned her front room into a shop, her life has gone crazy. This chick is a serious beer-fundi. She’s brewed it for years, goes to bed with books on yeast and now concentrates on teaching other people and selling them the kit they need to make their own. She’s moving premises at the moment to Pinelands but you can still contact her on her website www.beerlab.co.za. If you start your brew now, it should be perfect for Christmas and if you really want to please the special person in your life (and note, I didn’t say ‘man’ cos chicks love beer too), then sign ‘em up for a course and get them a starter kit. I am – and I think it will be the best pressie he’s ever had.

Mind you – after all this, I’d better bloody win this competition. Lynnae says she has full confidence in me and has even said she wants to taste my beer when it’s done – I think it’s to check if I cocked up her instructions or not. She’s also been helping my rival in beer – Stephanie B – who incidentally and curiously also has a Yorkshire connection in her brewing story, because her chap hails from Sheffield. I think we should bill this as the new War of the Roses – 2 beers, both made with Yorkshire love, both advised by the same Homebrewing Queen, but only one winner (all this said in dramatic movie announcer voice). Who has the date with destiny? Which one will have what it takes to win the ultimate prize? Coming soon to a beer festival near you – The War of the Beer Roses. South Yorkshire vs West – I’m betting and hoping the West will win the day.

Washing the bottles in the bath

Sterilizing

…and finally the beer emerges.

One plop! Two plop! in go the carbonation drops

Last but not least the capping

You know at school when the entire rest of your class, all your friends and all your friends little brothers and sisters were allowed to stay up late and watch ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ on a Tuesday night and you got sent to bed at your usual time (‘We can rebuild him. We can make him the Worlds. First. Bionic. Man, Ner-ner-ner-NERRRRR’)? Remember what you wailed at an implacable parent – “But Mu-ummmmm! Everyone else is doing it!” and she would always reply “If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you?” which is not only unanswerable, but actually very stupid when you come to analyse it? Well, I’ve been having a lot of that this week because – shudders with confession-angst – I haven’t yet bottled my beer.

I’m actually having some sleepless nights now about the Loo Brew, because everyone but EVERYONE else seems to have spent the week busily sterilising and bottling and is now touting for cool labels and names for their beer. I’m happy to do the latter, as I suspect that the market for a beer named after a toilet could be limited and frankly, a little unsavoury. But my beer is still sitting happily in the fermenter, doing – well, doing pretty much nothing actually. According to my Beer Guru, this is all okay and the beer is now absorbing and integrating and I must just shut up and chill out.

So this is what I am trying to do. With, of course, copious amounts of wine. The timetable for my bottling is next weekend, leaving 3 weeks of bottle maturation before Judgement Day. And I have to win, simply for the pride of the Wine Industry in South Africa. For many a year, the saying has done the rounds “It takes a lot of beer to make a good wine” and my aim in this competition is to prove the opposite is true as well. With that in mind, I am going through a bottle of wine a night – a sacrifice of my liver which I am sure will be fully-appreciated when I walk off with top brewing honours.

Anyway – back to the main event. I need a name for my beer. Clearly Loo Brew is not going to cut it in this fiercely-competitive world of Blogger Brewing, so something needs to change. It would be nice if there was a wine-element in the name perhaps, but I don’t really mind, it just needs to be a winning name. There are FREE TICKETS – that got your attention – for the best suggestion for name and then I need a label design as well, but that can come later. So please let me have your suggestions below and the best idea can proudly adorn the Best Bloggers Beer in SA – c’mon – how can you resist an accolade like that?!

In the meantime and in the absence of any other photos cos nothing is happening, here is a picture of my cat. Utterly random pic, but I think you’ll agree, very cute.

So – first week down in the Bloggers Brewing Challenge and I’m kicking myself for not following my Yorkshire upbringing and using better water in my beer as some of the other bloggers appear to have done. If you are ever in Leeds and have half a day, a fun thing to do is to go round the Tetley’s brewery. Hardly craft or boutique, it is nevertheless quite good fun and what you do learn at the end of it (mainly because they drum it into your head at every conceivable turn) is that when it comes to good beer “It’s awll in the warrrrta.” That was my attempt at phonetically-spelling “It’s all in the water.” In a Yorkshire accent. Not quite sure it worked out – maybe Stephanie Be’s boyfriend can advise me further???

Anyway – suffice it to say, I didn’t go trolling around Newlands with a bucket, so good old Cape Town Municipality water will have to do for me. I opened the brew this weekend to add yet more secret ingredients. Here you go – my peas and gravy brew.

And then, inspired by things going quite well, I thought I’d taste it. Hey all you other blogging Brewers out there – be afraid. Cos my beer is already tasting very damn fine indeed.

It’s getting a bit chilly out there which apparently is all to the good but I’ve wrapped it up tenderly in a blanket and will see how it goes. And in the meantime, I thought you might like to see this – The wonderful world of wine-beer They say it takes a lot of beer to make a good wine. Let’s hope the reverse is also true cos there’s a helluva lot of wine being drunk in my house at the moment.
Cheers

I am not an organised person. So for instance, whenever I cook, I am constantly moving things such as school bags, stray socks, sunglasses, car keys etc which litter my work surfaces and cause an obstruction. My disorganisation is further complicated by the fact  that my cooking sessions always seem to trigger a creative urge in my 6 year old so that he comes and lies on the floor behind me and builds train tracks, constructs Lego museums or draws pictures, all of them in hopes that I will fall over him and he will get some attention.

At some point or another – the cry will always go up “Bloody Jamie Oliver doesn’t have to deal with this shit!” as I search for space to put the pan down, try and find the spoon I just used 10 seconds ago but which has now vanished, and drop pancake batter over my iPad whilst trying to read the recipe over my shoulder.

So that is how I cook. And it came as no surprise to me to realise that I make beer in the same way. My brewing this Sunday was interspersed with making chocolate crispy cakes, playing a game of Beetle and washing up the night before’s dishes because I needed the spoons. But I hope I’ve got it done okay. The instructions seem quite simple and even though I have added some secret ingredients which I am not prepared to reveal as yet, it all seems fine and the fermenter is now sitting in my outside loo bubbling away to itself.

One secret which I will share with you, however – nothing is too good for my beer which is why I ONLY use Primitiv Vodka, the vodka of kings, in my airlock. Quite honestly dahlings – nothing else will do.

My son is loving the airlock by the way. He can’t remember the real name so calls it the ‘bloopbloop’ which is the noise it makes. He’s also loving the box the beer came in – proof once again that all a child needs to be happy is a cardboard box and some imagination. Although Phineas and Ferb on the iPad and a chocolate crispy cake will also do the trick.

Ah – see? It only takes one sniff of the barmaid’s apron and I relapse into the language and behaviour of my student days. Cape Town Festival of Beer is scheduled to take place at the end of November and as part of the run-up and to encourage more people to drink craft beer, a competition has been organised between ten of the Cape’s top lifestyle bloggers to see who can make the best home brew.

Well, clearly they were only able to find 9, because they asked me to take the last slot – I suspect they think I’m like the fat kid in Hunger Games – the one they’re sure they’re going to slay with relative ease.

Well ha ha ha to them cos actually, I’m a bit of a ringer when it comes to beer. Everything I know about wine was taught to me whilst I was working at one of the UK’s top independent breweries and on top of all that, I actually own 5 consecutive years-worth of CAMRA beer glasses. And a real, genuine Oktoberfest beer stein as well. Yeah, yeah – bet you’re all quivering in your boots now eh????

So over the next few weeks I shall be brewing my own beer in hopes of proving that wine folk have good beer chops as well and – of course – winning the grand prize of fame, fortune, glory and a tour around SAB. On the way, I shall be sharing some beer-soaked thoughts on life, the universe and everything and trying to keep up with the other contestants in the cool stakes. So for starters, my husband has put Instagram on my phone – apparently that ‘instagramantly’ makes me cool and hipster which is nice. Here’s my first pic with it of the kit which arrived yesterday.

And here is another pic I took and which I forgot to instagram of the Random Red Piece of Plastic. I checked all the contents carefully against the list on the side of the box, but can find no explanation for this bit anywhere.

I suspect it may be missing from a game of Mousetrap – remember this?

My husband thinks it is some sort of winder (what??? I have no idea) and my son thinks it looks like a one-dimensional outline of a church. If you have any better suggestions (and I can’t believe that anything wouldn’t be better than that trio of ideas), then please let me know. In the meantime – let the brewing begin!!