FOR decades the major British brewers have traditionally supported the Tory Party. In the 2015 general election these bosses at various brewers proved that link is still strong.

Regular Morning Star contributor Keith Flett listed them in an excellent article on beer and politics on the must-read website Culture Matters.

In the lead was Jonathan Neame, boss at Shepherd Neame the Kentish 322 pub brewer who for many years was the brewer that gave the biggest donations to the Tory Party.

Rooney Anand, top man at 3,000 pubs and eateries Greene King group, which owns Chef and Brewer, Loch Fyne and countless other pub and restaurant chains was another.

Also on the list is Ralph Findlay, boss at Marstons with 1,550 pubs mainly in the Midlands. Michael Turner, chairman at London 400 pub brewers Fullers, was quick to donate, as his brewery always has. Finally, there’s Andy Harrison, boss at Whitbread which no longer actually brews beer but owns  more than 750 Premier Inn Hotels and 2,800 Costa coffee shops.

So how can you avoid putting money into the pipeline from these brewers direct to the Tory Party? 

Well one way is to brew your own. I first started brewing my own beer and making my own wine and cider back in the 1970s. The main reason was to save money but also because I didn’t like the fact that some of my hard-earned beer money was going into the pockets of the big brewers and from there straight into the Tory coffers.

Nearly half a century ago I made beer mostly from kits and wine from imported grape juice concentrate, but I also made wine from home grown fruit and cider from a mix of windfall apples that friends were happy to get rid of.

Frankly, nothing I made was wonderful, but it was mostly quite drinkable and much, much cheaper than shop or pub-bought drinks.

Today the home-brew industry is far more sophisticated and the results much better even though prices are a little higher. If you are lucky enough to have a good home-brew shop nearby, they invariably offer all the advice, ingredients and equipment you will need.

These specialist shops have a vast range of options from easy-to-use kits or back-to-basic ingredients — yeasts, grains, malts and hops.

Whichever you decide on you will be able to make exactly the kind of beer you like best, be it stout, bitter, ale, lager or even something more exotic like cloudy wheat beer.

If you can’t find a shop nearby then there are lots of home-brew suppliers on the internet.   

Today I don’t drink enough beer to make my own, but my partner Ann loves beer and is constantly investigating new micro-breweries. She often finds that the new breed of micro-brewers were ex-home beer makers who have turned their hobby into a business.

With home-made wine the situations is very similar to beer. Today’s kits offer a chance to find the right grape variety to match your choice of wine. With the new equipment and cleaning stuff, making fruit and flower wines is easy too.

Cider — and my own particular favourite tipple, pear cider or perry — needs different equipment and techniques. However, once friends and neighbours learn you are making perry or cider you will find no shortage of surplus fruit being delivered to your door.

Today all the world and her husband are making their own flavoured gins at gin palaces and gin festivals as well as at home. Juniper berries give gin its original distinctive flavour as well as its name.
 

Genever is Dutch for both Juniper and gin. To the raw gin — virtually the same spirit as vodka — you can add all kinds of organics from the original juniper to exotic herbs, fruits and spices.

This brings us neatly to the main drink making Ann and I do these days.

We make liquors from hedgerow harvests. Elderflowers and elderberries, blackberries and all kinds of other wild fruit grow profusely in our countryside. Picking them is easy and free. Key things to remember is don’t pick too near road pollution and always above the height a large dog can pee.

While you are out walking, look out for wild hops too. We have found them growing along canal towpaths and used them both in our own beer and also in dried hop pillows — the best natural cure for insomnia.

Crab apples as well as making the predictable crab apple jelly, can also add a useful astringency to cider made mainly from sweet eating apples.

Of the fruit found in wild hedgerows the most obvious is sloes for sloe gin, but we also make the Russian Bolsheviks’ favourite tipple bird cherry vodka. This uses the tiny too-hard-to-be-edible fruit of wild cherry trees and makes a delicious brew. If you know of a wild damson or bullace tree you can also make a great plum brandy or slivovitz.

The method for all these is the same. Prick between a kilogram and half a kilo of fruit and steep it in a full bottle of your chosen spirit, add between half and a pound of sugar depending on how sweet a tooth you have.

You will need a large jar with a tightly fitting lid. Shake every day for the first three months then strain off the fruit. Some people keep it in the boot of the car to get well shaken.

After three months agitation leave the liquor to stand still for a further nine months. Then carefully pour off the now cleared liquid into a bottle or decanter. Impatient people can use a coffee filter to speed up the process.

Home-brewed ginger beer is easy and delicious and when you get your ginger beer plant going well you can divide it up and pass it on to friends. Today the easy way is to start with a plant from one of the suppliers on the internet. It will come with full instructions. I got my first ginger beer plant at a Daily Worker bazaar decades ago.

Making your own drinks is great fun, saves you money and you can be sure you are drinking pure offerings without E numbers or chemical additives.

Best of all you are making no financial contribution to the Tories or the huge transnational drinks companies that are busy spreading chemical brews, alco-pops and horrible fizzy, weak and watery US or Australian lagers all across the globe.

Cheers!

This article is based on a similar article published in the Country Standard.