Home brewed beer

It is raining today, a good day to do some work inside. I bottled 66 bottles of beer. Cream Ale, from Brewer's Wort made in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada by Festa Brew. I bought 23 liters of wort. The kit also contains Brewer's Yeast sachet. On April 15 I  poured the wort into a pail, added the yeast and waited for the fermenting to take place. On April 20 I transferred the fermented wort into a glass carboy, put an airlock at the top and let it sit to clear. Today, 38 days later, I bottled it. I could have bottled it earlier, but I just didn't have the time. It is not that critical, as long as there is an airlock on the carboy to prevent bacteria from entering the wort it is okay. In fact, the beer already ages in the carboy. Before bottling, I transferred the wort into a pail, added 1 1/2 cup of dextrose and siphoned the beer into sanitized bottles. The dextrose is needed to carbonate the beer, otherwise it will taste flat. Now I have to wait a few weeks until I can drink it. It gets better with time.

I read on one website that home brewed beer doesn't last as long as beer brewed by the breweries. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's just the opposite, bought beer doesn't last long, but home made beer will. I just finished the 3rd last bottle of beer which I bottled March 22, 2008. That's over 5 years ago. And the beer tasted great. I'd like to see commercially brewed beer last that long! I still have 2 bottles left, but I will drink them in the next few days. Why would I have beer that old? Actually, I forgot about it. I have about 500 empty bottles, those stubby ones without the screw top. The bottles are in their original cases. For some reason I still had about 3 dozen full bottles among the empty ones. The last time I made beer was in 2010. I drank that, but left the one I made in 2008. It is actually dark beer and I'm not too fond of dark beer. But now with the price of beer I decided to drink it. I'm running out and it was time to start making beer again.

These 5 1/2 dozen cost me about $35.00, compared to $132.00 had I bought commercially made beer. That's quite a saving. Suddenly, the dark beer tasted very nice.

Should you live in a country where beer is cheaper, you'll wonder why beer in Canada is so expensive. Easy answer: our government is greedy. They have the monopoly and can charge anything they want. Besides, the high-priced employees working for the liqueur commission need to be paid.
Everything with alcohol is expensive in Canada. That's why I also make my own wine. I don't drink hard liqueur, only whiskey mixed with ginger ale once in awhile, so I don't worry too much about the high price of hard liqueur.

In case you wonder how I know when I bottled the beer in 2008, I keep a log of every batch of wine and beer I make. That way I always know when it was made. Also how many batches I made over the years. But that is my secret -:)