#CTFOB Blogger Brew Challenge - The Beerbaby

Over the past couple of weeks, our house has become a bit of a science lab/brewery. Nash & I are taking part in the Cape Town Festival of Beer Blogger Challenge. We've been given two home brewing kits and are competing against Cathy Marston from Food24 (who happens to be one of my personal heroes), Dylan from Life Is Savage, the other Dylan from Mr Cape Town, Natasha from Raising Men, Tank from Front Row Grunt, Raoul from Urban Ninja, Stephanie B and Kamini from What The Strut to see who can brew the best.

If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram I'm sure you're aware that I'm quite the impassioned Drinking Enthusiast. More specifically; a Beer and Wine Enthusiast. I've actually done two wine courses (with my wine hero, Cathy), which have definitely helped my taste buds to develop, obviously aiding in the Beer Appreciation Department of my mouth and brain.

Brewing beer at home is not all "let's throw these ingredients together and hope they ferment while we do other things" as you (I) may have imagined. I for one, was under the impression that it's quite the artists game. When in reality, it's more a job for a scientist. I imagine it's just like making a baby. You think that once you're ready you'll just give it one go and the little swimmers will do the rest. But from what I can tell, it's quite the scientific process when it comes down to it. In fact, brewing beer at home is exactly like looking after a giant baby, before bottling it into 40 or so smaller babies.

If I'm completely honest, the brewing process hasn't been so much "Nash & I" as it has "Nash". I feel like one of those new moms who feel distanced and depressed as soon as they have the baby. The thought of brewing at home had me all glowy and pregnant with emotion...but the actual brewing- the "beer baby", has me lying down in a dark room while Nash does the dirty work.

He's the one with all the patience, you see. So while he painstakingly disinfects and purifies our entire kitchen and all the equipment our new beerchild needs, I run around Instagramming and doing the fun things, like boiling our secret ingredients in a stocking. Note to self: Next time, don't use a black stocking.

Obviously the beerbaby has lots of special needs and has to kept at a constant temperature, in a dry environment. We can't play our music too loudly and we need to keep the sun away from the beerbaby's eyes at all times. It's exhausting. Thank goodness I have such a supportive beerbabydaddy.

Last night Nash bathed and pampered the bottles we recycled from &Union before we finally got to bottle our beer infant into three cases of mini-infants! It was a very proud moment in the Nash house. 

The new beerbaby has caused some jealousy though, and our eldest child, BABYCAT has become obsessed with running away from home. That's the problem with having a second child ie. the beerbaby; the first child starts acting up for attention. 

Stay tuned for more on The Beerbaby.