Fermenting things has been part of my life for many years. From 2013 until 2017 I brewed my own beers. In 2016/2017, the municipality I live in experienced one of the most severe droughts in our province. Cape Town, one of the major cities in the world, experienced what they called “Day Zero”, the day when the taps run dry. If I remember correctly, this is the first major city in the world that experienced such a phenomenon.
This obviously impacted my beer brewing as we were only allowed to use 20 litres of water per person per day. I did not have water to brew beer with. For three or so years, I could not brew beer, and my equipment gathered dust. I brewed many hundreds if not thousands of litres of beer. On a daily basis, I drank a couple of beers. I wrote poetry, short stories, and I philosophised about the weirdest things.
My obsession with fermenting got carried over to bread baking, other ferments, and so many different things. But that is another story.
With brewing beer, you always brew a batch that does not come out perfectly. You experiment, but when that experiment does not go according to plan, you have 20-50 litres of beer you have to deal with. What do you do with it? I did not like dumping it, and I waited a couple of weeks to see if they were able to “self-correct”. I lived in the fantasy that maybe in the bottle the beers will magically turn out fine. But this did not happen, and for 5 years the bottles gathered dust in my storage room. And today was the day that dumped it all. This meant opening about 50 bottles.
All the brewing memories came back to me. The early mornings that I got up, the hours that I stood over the boiling wort, all the time spent bottling each bottle… Those were the days. I remembered the days as a young student reading poetry, drinking my own beer, looking at the mountains, thinking I was the king of my castle.
And here I am now, looking into the bottle again, but this time not drinking a single drop of beer. These beers never “self-corrected”, they were vile and the stinking smell made me think twice about how much I love drinking beer.
My girlfriend helped me open the bottles, we sat in this stench, experiments that did not go well, and all that time literally down the drain. But such is life, right? Sometimes, you need to pour things down the drain to see the light of day, to make space for something new to grow.
It is sad, I see all my beer brewing equipment lying in the house, gathering dust. I am not sure if I will ever brew beer again. It was a love affair drenched in youthful-existential feelings which I literally outgrew. Now, I would much rather read a book, drink an occasional craft beer, and enjoy my free time.
We outgrow some things, but we grow into new things.
The new year began with a clearing out, a growing into new things, a removal of what only gathered dust. Now, there are so many other things to sort out. But this is the first step towards something better, a less cluttered lifestyle, a less cluttered life.
The future has a lot of potential.
All of the writings in this post are my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my iPhone.
Should have held one or two bottles back for slug bait around the garden in shallow trays, too late or perhaps just as well if they smell awful!
!LOLZ happy 2024 to trying your hand fermenting other foods and vegetables now.
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Does it work to keep the slugs away? I still have a couple of litres beer that I did not throw out, as I want to still drink some! But that may not happen, as it is 6 years old.
Thank you, and a happy 2024 to you too! I will definitely ferment other things now, cheaper and faster.
Apparently slugs/snails are attracted to the smell, lids used with a little in each between the plants is what I was told years ago. Smell before taste test !LOLZ
That sounds good! Will try it out with some of the older brews that are not so nice any more. Only a couple of teaspoons will not take away too much! Thanks for the tip. But things in the Cape are so dry at the moment. Will have to try it in the winter.
Hope it works, sometimes these stories are passed down and do nought.
True. That is why it is so important to keep track of everything. Through history, wisdom is either lost or gained.
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I can sympathize with this, if I had a bad batch, I would wait and see if someday it would mature into something decent. But I know this never happens. Sorry to have to dump so much nasty product, I hope you'll try again! You have the equipment and bottles and learning experience, maybe it would be worth trying another batch.
Thank you so much for the sympathy! Indeed, no one can take away the experience now, and I might just try my hand at it again. Sadly, I am way too busy at the moment, as I am finishing up my PhD. But maybe after that, when I slow down a bit, I will make it a weekend hobby again.
Are you still brewing?
Laughs! The Betty's father also brews his own beer, I think the two of you can share some stories. I on the one hand is overly fond of that ofcourse... I've developed a keen taste for craftbeer over the last three years! I hardly drink anything else nowadays!!
Sad that you had to dump it, but that's life I suppose!! 🫠🫠
Yeah, sadly I had to. It never recovered! It had some bret yeast or bacteria growing in/on it when I brewed it (basically wild yeast - which is a bad thing for home brewing a normal style of beer).
I am sure he had to dump some batches as well!
Yeah man, do you know about the beer passport thing? It is a great way to indulge in local craft beers!
Great post! I'm glad this type of content is being produced on HIVE. You got yourself a new follower.
Thank you so much, my friend! I am sorry for only replying now. What a busy start to the new year. I am so glad that you liked this. Keep well!
Wow that is wild that the water was so strictly provisioned in your area. I live in a pretty rural area and often the water is turned off for a couple of days but it does eventually come back, and there is no way for them to measure how much each house gets. but anyway, back to the content of the post, I think it is okay to give up on things, or let them flow away, I am going through something similar right now with the "death" of a business idea a friend and I started out together. I am trying to see how it is "transforming" instead of ending.
Oh man, that sounds good in some sense, but also not! Sometimes the pipes in our area burst, and then without notice the water is cut off for two or three days. It is something to get used to.
And yes, for sure. Not everything in life turns out good, and it is mostly how we deal with it that helps with transformation right.
Thank you so much for the wonderful comment, keep well my friend!