BEER DIARY

It's like 'Dear Diary', except we're brewing a beer, gettit? Our illustrious East London alehouse adventures begin. Look on, gentle blogobserver, and learn well.

The beginnings of a good day.... To find out why Vaseline is in this picture, continue reading...

The bucket is sterilised then rinsed.

We add the delicious ready-made beer goo to warm water - I think this just makes it stir in easily. It's like molasses but with a ready prepared golden Pilsner flavour to it (I neglected to look at the ingredients and understand how this is achieved. More learnings to be done!)

Goo goes in bucket.

Then more sugar, dissolved in hot water. Then a large amount of cold water (amounts vary based on your brew, so I won't go into it.)

The mixture must then cool back down to 20'C, while we wake up the yeast in just-over-room-temp water for ten minutes. Braumeister Heath considers the options carefully.

Mmmmmmm, super-sugary water.

Cooling down proved impossible as London was at an unprecedented 26'C, so the bucket was carefully placed in the cellar.

Finally cooled, we add the yeast and seal the lid with the airlock (this is why you need Vaseline, if you were wondering.)

The beer in its resting place, will brew in the initial stage for ten days before being transferred to our keg. Hopefully after a further week we will have something drinkable. Stay tuned!

still getting used to this new uploading format

It's crazy, I was thinking about making a world map of feminism, after England ranked twelfth or something ridiculous in the places it would be good to be a woman in the world (wild claim based on half-remembered article somewhere). I just want to chart what's going on, I suppose. We definitely could be doing far worse.
And now I suddenly find out about Paula Scher's amazing maps. I don't know if she did a feminist-oriented one though. I'll let you know how my research goes.

A Brick and A Hard Place

Just read the Samantha Brick article, as I should have done when it first emerged, and am pleased that it engendered such a response, because it is a pile of claptrap. But I’m confused by the reactions. Why does this woman reduce everything to her good looks? It’s an awful piece of journalism, and the way in which she feels that her beauty is the entire reason for the attentions she receives makes me incredibly sad.

She speaks about how women constantly socially reject and professionally block her because of their insecurity and jealousy over her looks. The things I find myself becoming jealous about, when it comes to my boyfriend, are that other women may be more suitable for him personality-wise. I would also get jealous if someone younger than me was getting a promotion ahead of me (although I know how unrealistic that is, especially in present circumstances). These do of course all speak of huge insecurity issues. But Brick does not allow herself to indulge in any alternatives to the idea that her beauty is the threat to other women.

I don’t know about the constant attention from men she talks about. It strikes me that that is not a ‘beauty’ thing, or not as directly as it seems: it is that she is confident, wears bright colours, wears well-fitting clothes, and is generally well-turned out. If I had to live in heels and make-up to get free bottles of champagne, well, look at me not bothering. I like dressing like a lumberjack half the time because I know I'm a beautiful woman and I don't need any external parties pointing it out to me.

It’s simple to get people’s attention in this way, and just as easy to defer it. Brick has made a career of it and it is her ‘On’ setting. That’s perfectly fair for a journalist and media personality. The only reason people should have for hating her, I would suggest, is that she is too dense to see past her own exterior.

Keep trying, feminism, but I think Brick would count herself out of the movement for fear other women wouldn’t want her in it.