The Shed – September-October 2019

128 The Shed 86 September/October 2019

THE

GOOD

LIFE

By Jude Woodside

Back o’ The Shed

I

have started brewing beer again.

I know that’s not unusual and

many of us do it. What has struck me

from my past experience is how much

better the modern brews are. In the

past when I brewed you had very little

choice — it was Coopers, or Coopers.

Of course, I was at the time living

in the West Island. While Coopers

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homebrewed version was okay, it did

leave me wondering what else there

could be. It wasn’t until the recent

explosion in craft brewing that more

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we could all break free from the awful

stranglehold of the two big brewers

here with their over-sweetened,

bland offerings.

The things I have to do

In another life I once attended a press

conference introducing the ‘new’

Guinness beer. It was a dirty, dirty job

but someone had to do it. It wasn’t so

much that the beer was new, just that

the company had changed the formula

back to the original Irish recipe.

Apparently, in their wisdom the

brewers here had decided that the

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“New Zealand tastes”; in other

words, they had sweetened it up and

otherwise altered an iconic beer. My

father, a born and bred Irishman,

wouldn’t touch the stuff, proclaiming

loudly that “that wasn’t made with any

water from the Liffey*”.

He was right. Oddly enough the

beer didn’t sell well in New Zealand,

which might have been the point of

modifying it. Who needs competition?

However, it did take off after the

adoption of the original recipe. In the

past Guinness was offered to women

who had just given birth as a tonic to

restore iron. My mother had it after my

birth, in one of the prefab sheds that

was Auckland’s Cornwall Hospital in

the dim, dark ’50s. Back then it was

the real stuff — imported.

I’t’s all been drinkable

Having invested in a stainless-steel

fermenter I have been busy producing

a variety of beers from lager to stout

and have started experimenting with

improvements of my own, adding hops

and crystal malt, and trying other yeast

strains. It has led to a huge reduction

in my output of recyclables since I

reuse the bottles now and I believe it

has, overall, saved me money.

Not all my offerings have been

perfect but all, so far, have been

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haven’t had any bottle bombs.

In the past I simply poured the

concentrated malt into the fermenter

and added sugar. Nowadays, of course,

that is rather frowned on and one uses

dextrose and malt combinations with

various selective additions.

I have not progressed to all-grain

brewing, partly because that requires

a further substantial investment in

equipment and takes considerably

longer. I am not that committed to the

process yet. I don’t intend to produce

prodigious quantities, just enough to

entertain myself and my friends.

My long-term aims

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reasons you understand, but, rather, I

am hoping it will enable me to live a

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regard I have become quite industrious

in areas I wouldn’t have considered

previously. It’s not unusual to see me

bottling fruit, preserving lemons, and

even baking, all the while feeling smug

about the 5kW photovoltaic array on

my shed roof t hat is ta k i ng ca re of most

of my electrical needs through the day.

That array also provides three-phase

power for my shed, as long as I use it

through the day. My freezer still has

half a pig from December and will

shortly be bulging with most of a steer.

Although I could complain that my

income is not what it was, I do have

the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of

my labour manifest and fooling myself

that I am in control of my welfare.

*The Liffey is the river that runs

through Dublin. Haven’t you read

Ulysses?

128 The Shed 86 September/October 2019