The Beer father

It was my niece Phoebe's christening on Sunday. My sister was a god parent but there was a more important role for me: I am now Phoebe's beer father.

The poor child has been unforunate enough to be born to non-beer drinking parents, so as well as needing people to look after her spiritual needs she needs someone to look after her beeritual needs too. There's an awful lot of beers out there nowadays so having an adult to guide her through the complexities of the beer world and steer her towards the decent stuff should help her mature into a confident and competent beer drinker. And hopefully this will also mean that the curse of humulophobia is not carried on through the family.

Admittedly she's got another four and a half years until she can drink legally but as I take my responsibilities seriously I supplied a polypin of bitter for the christening party. I'd aimed for a drinkable session bitter and it came out pretty much how I'd planned.

I'd could have beefed it up a bit as it was a little thin, but it was on a Sunday afternoon and I wanted something that the assembled masses would be happy to drink.


Phoebe was not happy when she was told she can't have a beer for four and a half years.

The recipe for the beer was:

Pale Malt 8.40 kg
Wheat malt 0.35 kg
Cara malt 0.15 kg
Choc malt 0.15 kg

Boil start: Fuggles 100g
10min from end: Styrian Goldings 40g
Steep: Styrian Goldings 40g
Dry: Styrian Goldings 40g

Yeast: Hopback

This was for nine gallons, the other half I kept for home consumption.