WHEN I drank a beer that tasted like a band-aid, I knew we’d hit rock bottom.
It was home-brew. A beer so mouth-twistingly awful that even five fingers of Cheezels couldn’t disguise the taste.
I know times are tough and economically we’re hurting. I know electricity prices are high and we’re willing to flock to Costco to save 40 cents on bog roll paper. But it is a blight on Australia that beer, a staple of this country, has reached a point where people are forced to make it from kits in their shed to save a few dollars.
The beer-maker, proud as punch, told me how cheap it was to make. I smiled and wondered if I discreetly poured it on the garden, would it kill the geranium.
The next time I was at the bottle-o, I realised he was right. I stared blankly at the fridge and thought, in a very middle-aged way, “When did beer get so expensive?”
The best cold beer is dear. Which makes the home-brew kit so enticing.
The promise of cheap beer is hard to resist. Plus there’s the satisfaction of knocking one back that you made with your own bare hands and the amazed look from your friends when they realise you’ve been harbouring your incredible beer-making skill in secret.
But do not be seduced. Because it’s almost never like that. Instead, when you gaily offer around a home-brew beer, people will secretly think you’re weird. Or worse, a tightwad. Consider it the kind of thing you drink in secret, at home. Cheap and cheerful, but a social faux pas to take it out to a party or press it upon your guests at your own.
It’s probably unfair but that’s the way it is. People usually fawn over homemade things. My pantry is sticky with jams and marmalades from market stalls. Someone gifted me a bottle of lemon cordial the other day and it was the nectar of the gods. Home-baked biscuits are better, crocheted rugs are my household style staple and friends are now making their own butter. Homemade is HOT.
But home-brew is not.
Proponents tell me it has come a long way. I’m sure it has, but to me, it was a phase everyone did as students because we couldn’t afford actual beer. It tasted of soysauce. And even now, it still conjures up visions of men with sweat patches making beer in bathtubs.
Not all is lost, though. All that’s required is a little image makeover. Just like jam jars suddenly became de rigeur glassware, home-brew just needs a little hipster fairy dust.
Home-brewers: grow yourself a beard. Buy a leather apron. Use words like “sessionable”. (It’s nice beer to drink a lot of.) Act mysterious and aloof. You’re no longer a home-brew maker, you’re now a craftsman who makes craft beer.
You could always enter the craft beer championships, too. Though, you’ll be hard-pressed to win. The rumour is, this year one of the big beer brewers entered a craft beer that tasted fantastic. They won. Then revealed it was actually just one of their normal draught beers in a different bottle. Very crafty.
No matter how bad things get, there is no need to resort to home-brew. We make the best beer in the country right here in this state. Leave them to it. Because no amount of Cheezels can disguise the taste of failure.
