Have a go at brewing your own beer & wine at home.  All you have to do is type in “Home brew” and up come a whole host of online suppliers of home brewing kit.  Add your local city and then maybe more local suppliers will come up. You can also try EBay, plenty of suppliers will ship the stuff to you at reasonable costs.  Once you have the starting kit then its just a case of getting the ingredients sent to you.My biggest problem is having to be patient and wait for the fermentation and conditioning to take place.  But believe me it is better to wait out the recommended 4-5 weeks, depending on what you are brewing, because some of the stuff can still taste pretty raw if you rush it.

I tried brewing beer and started with a proper plastic fermentation bucket that has a tightly sealing lid and a vent that allows gas out, but not in.  First and most important is to sterilize everything properly because you can easily contaminate your brew if you dont have clean equipment.  Then I boiled some water, mixed it together with the raw ingredients or wort as it is called, added water and finally sprinkled the yeast on top of the malty smelling mix.

Before sealing the bucket you take a reading with a hydrometer, so that later you can check the alcohol content of your brew.  I waited a week for the fermentation process to be complete.  Then I transferred the beer to a finishing cask, I added a little sugar to give the beer some gas or head and left it alone for 4 weeks.

Home brewing is a fun way of experimenting and trying to come up with your favourite beer.  There are loads of different home brew mixes that you can get online.

Meantime brewery is a relatively small brewery based in Greenwich, London.  Founded in 2000 by Alastair Hook a Brew Master, passionate about creating new beers, with interesting flavors, brewed with care and a long time to maturation.  Meantime first won a medal at the World Beer Cup in 2004, and since then it is the only British brewery to win medals every year at the World Beer Cup.

In 2007 and 2008, Meantime had four of its beers ranked in the “World’s 50 Best Beers” by the International Beer Challenge – no small feat!  Have you tried a Meantime brew?  Next time you are in Greenwich, London go on a Meantime Brewery tour or have a meal at their pub “The Greenwich Union”

The British Guild of Beer Writers named Alastair the “Brewer of the Year” for 2008.  Passion, vision and innovation were the qualities that earned Alastair this title and have continued to grow the Meantime brand.

Meantime Beer in Champagne Bottles

One of their novel ideas was to bottle their beer in champagne bottles, creating attention towards their brand.  In spring 2010 Meantime brewery will open a new brewery and restaurant in a building called the “Old Brewery” at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. The Old Brewery dates back to 1717, brewing beer alongside the Thames river for pensioners of the Royal Naval Hospital.  Meantime have restored a Grade II listed building to its former heritage.

Well worth a visit if you are ever in London, or at least try one of their ales that are found in many of London’s pubs.