Stout from scratch

To make home brewed stout; take one 1930's recipe book and the following ingredients -

Scratch your head and ponder what *Spanish* is. Ask your Northern other half who informs you that it is liquorice (which apparently is what they call it 'up there'). Wonder where to get *black malt* and decide to replace it with chocolate malt. Realise that 'in those days' they had bigger pans but manage to cobble it together with a variety jugs and pots. Weigh the chocolate malt.


Weigh the Fuggles hops.

Weigh the dark brown sugar.

Using your biggest pan, boil up some water, add the hops and malt. The kitchen becomes infused with the intense aroma of strong, black coffee.



Add *one pennyworth of black Spanish* - bought from a traditional sweet shop. Briefly wonder what *one pennyworth* looks like and hazard that it is probably an ounce. Read the recipe and find no mention whatsoever of when to add the BS but bung it in anyway.

Pour the bitter melange of chocolaty boiling glop onto the dark brown sugar in a brewing bucket and top up with cold water to three and a half gallons. Add ale yeast and leave overnight. Return to find it is doing very little so chuck in a tablespoon of baker's yeast which does the trick.



Three days later, strain and keg up, adding half a pound more sugar and making a phenomenal amount of mess in the kitchen in the process, not having a funnel or large enough jelly bag. After a few more days, tentatively tap off a glass and be very surprised when it actually comes out looking like a 'real' glass of stout, tasting deliciously of coffee and dark chocolate. Even better chilled.

Alcohol content unknown. Read the inscription in the recipe book and whole heartily agree;