Ingredients; Anyone ever make beer?

G

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The ingredients listed on this cheap beer im drinking from Lidl are;

Water, barley malt & hops extract.

No sugar or yeast mentioned. (do you not need yeast & sugar to make beer?)

The beer is called Perlenbacher and its not bad for a cheap summer drink.

I suppose I could look this up but im pretty sure we might have some expert beer makers and tips somewhere amongst Vital's finest.

:8:
 
Thought brewers yeast was a prerequisite never brewed so never given it massive thought I guess. Did think it was the fermentation of the yeast though.
 
Sugar is not needed. Yeast is for fermentation. I don't understand hop 'extract' as hops are essential, as is malt.

Without going through the whole process, malt is added to hot water in the mash tun where the starches are converted to sugar. Then hops are added for the bitterness and the yeast for the fermentation process.

What you've probably got GT is a low alcohol, possibly German style summer session beer.

 
A long time ago, before I discovered the joys of Vimto, I used to drink alcoholic beverages. After we got married and had our first child, I found that there was very little money left over for booze.
Around the same time Boots the Chemist brought out "beer-kits" which promised that you could make beer much more cheaply than buying it in the pub or off-licence.
I purchased one and followed the instructions exactly - except that, having read that putting extra sugar in would make it stronger, I added about 50% more than the recipe specified.
The result was a concoction somewhat similar to barley wine (does it still exist?) which tasted pretty vile and gave those who drank it a blistering headache.
 
lol, yes, I remember those kits. Strange thing for a chemist to have been selling really if you think about it.

Always seemed like hard work to me though, I like other people to do the work when drink is involved, I was happy to just drink the finished product!

One of my dads mates killed himself brewing his own. He never let it ferment properly and obviously had a drink problem, but he just ruined himself and apparently the concoctions were as good as still brewing whilst in him.

Nice cheerful story for a Sunday morning.
 
My Father used to make beer and wine when I was a child. He made wine out of everything possible, from carrots to dandelions.

No he wasn't an alcoholic. He was a man who was a professional gardener (before he joined the RAF) and continued it as a amateur gardener when my parents bought their own home.

Of course back then many more people lived off the land. Fruit Veg and so on weren't available like today.

My Father sold alot of the products to help our lifestyle. He did love it and it gave him alot of pleasure. Though a dysfunctional childhood I do have some pleasant memories, such as sitting on the back steps up to the greenhouses eating home grown tomatoes with the S & P pots sat next to me.

Yeah if he could find a way to bottle/jam and so on he did. Still have rather prickly memories of blackberry picking in the Autumn for jam/bottling/wines and so on.

I also remember hearing the pops in the cork overnight as the cork shot out of the bottle accross the room. In the morning we would be hunting for them in the dinning room. They popped into some strange places.

Anyhow I digress: GT just Google it. You will find plenty of sites about making your own
 
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