You know Boots, that’s right the chemist. Well many moons ago they used to sell homebrew kits. You might remember them. You got a plastic bucket fermenter, 20 odd litre plastic PET bottles and a jar of gunk that you mixed with hot water, added a load of cold water in the fermenter and chucked your yeast in and waited. It was my 16th birthday. And that’s what my Mum and Dad bought me. The adventure started.
I continued brewing with varied success for a good few years. Then I had a good 10 year hiatus when music took over and I was DJing and dancing a lot, drinking anything cold and wet that kept me hydrated and happy when behind the decks or on the dancefloor. When the dancing shoes were starting to wear out my friend and beer writer Ben (check out his excellent pub reviews) took me to the Kernel brewery in Bermondsey, South East London. I had a Citra IPA. Then I had a 4 Cs IPA (which I later found out were the US hops Centennial, Chinook, Citra and Columbus). This beer was served colder than the cask beer I’d been drinking and the flavour - Oof. The smash or tropical fruits on the nose, the balanced bitterness with the powerful hit of the hops. I couldn’t believe this was beer. It certainly was.
The mission then began. Having heard of the head of Kernel, Evin’s, homebrewing activity before starting the brewery I decided to go all grain. (For the hombrewe a hugely scaled down version of the process used by professional brewers). I began seeking out these new Craft Breweries. And my then home of South London was the place to be, with the likes of Brew By Numbers and Partizan slowly making Bermondsey a beery destination. I was hooked and hunting.
This journey of discovery has taken me to New York, Barcelona, Manchester, Buxton, Brighton, Belgium and numerous pubs and tap rooms around the UK. I continue to brew now and currently have a Saison kegged and hopefully pouring soon, and in the fermenter I have Belgian IPA – a near perfect style in my book with the Belgian yeast and phat American hops jumping out at you. Delicious
With all that in mind as a place to hang out we want Beer No Evil to be where you can come to talk beer. That’s why we’re going to be running a brewing club – Brew No Evil – we’ll share knowledge and mistakes so that we can all make better beer. We’ll have tastings, guest speakers and compare our
brews to professional brews. We’ll welcome those curious about brewing and those already doing it. We’ll work with the Brighton Group on joint events – it’ll be very exciting, and of course, loads of fun.
They'll be more info incoming, so watch this space.