The Alcohol thread...

[AussieBob]

Living in a share house I have seen a few home brews being made. From memory its best to use sugar drops from a home brew shop rather then normal sugar. A few times the brew hasn't gone well & it tastes like Vegemite My house mate recent batch was quite good as he used all ingredients... like hops and barley. The longer the stuff has been in the bottle the better it seems to taste... that might just be me tho lol


I've always been a big binge drinker and can down some ridiculous amounts of alcohol. Once or twice on week days I will have 2 or 3 drinks but then smash it the weekend lol. I pretty much binge til I start to feel tired from there its all down hill and there is no getting back up. To further the alcohol buzz I often mix alcohol with caffeine and sometimes with stimulants. Both can be quite fun, both can leave me with pretty bad hang overs lol

I go through phases with spirit alcohol... I will smash one type til im over it. Never really get over beer, only after like 6 at the pub I will need something different to mix it up a bit.
Favorite alcohols: Agwa, Jager, Melbourne Bitter, and Wild Turkey.

 

[Busty St Clare]

I have brewed my own beer for close to 20 years. Now days I brew mainly ginger beer because it is next to impossible to fuck up. I use raw sugar in the fermentation stage and either sugar drops or regular sugar at the bottling stage. On occasion I mix it up with brown sugar as well throwing in a whole chilly.

I have never had a problem with bottles exploding. The main cause would be if you try and bottle before the initial fermentation stage is complete or you try and place too much sugar at the bottling stage. This extra sugar is to produce the bubbles and you shouldn't be that scared of it. A simple trick is to make sure you have at least 5cm space at the top of the neck. For me it is glass tallies or nothing. I don't like to drink beer from plastic glass either... I'm a snob like that.

If you are nervous about brewing the best advice is to head to a brew shop that allows you to ferment it on site and head back a couple of weeks later to bottle. It is simple and they will give you the perfect mix of ingredients and store it at ideal temperatures. I have had plenty of these home brews that are indistinguishable from their branded equivalent.

At present it is too cold to brew and I am waiting until September to start my Xmas/holiday brew.

 

[belarki]

^ we're going to have to have a chat about the finer points of home-brewing when we next catch up busty My flatmates and I have a cider on the go at the moment with a heating belt around the barrel to keep it at a constant temperature. It's only our second batch brewed; the first turned out pretty average and tasted very yeasty :/

Just home from work and smashing down some Russian Standard....

 

[pisspotnrock]

I have brewed my own beer for close to 20 years. Now days I brew mainly ginger beer because it is next to impossible to fuck up. I use raw sugar in the fermentation stage and either sugar drops or regular sugar at the bottling stage. On occasion I mix it up with brown sugar as well throwing in a whole chilly.

I have never had a problem with bottles exploding. The main cause would be if you try and bottle before the initial fermentation stage is complete or you try and place too much sugar at the bottling stage. This extra sugar is to produce the bubbles and you shouldn't be that scared of it. A simple trick is to make sure you have at least 5cm space at the top of the neck. For me it is glass tallies or nothing. I don't like to drink beer from plastic glass either... I'm a snob like that.

If you are nervous about brewing the best advice is to head to a brew shop that allows you to ferment it on site and head back a couple of weeks later to bottle. It is simple and they will give you the perfect mix of ingredients and store it at ideal temperatures. I have had plenty of these home brews that are indistinguishable from their branded equivalent.

At present it is too cold to brew and I am waiting until September to start my Xmas/holiday brew.

Thanks for the detailed response to the micro brewin..

I was gonna go to U-Brew-It (commercial self brewin business) and do a brew there first but its a bit pricey compared to the micro brew kits (it will cost less to buy the brew kit and all necessary 'ingrediants' apposed to doin one brew at that place athough I have sampled the U-Brew-It beer and it is IMO, top of the range).

looks like glass is the go Would rather go through the extra effort of cleanin the glass each brew apposed to usin plastic Might start off with ginger beer just to get used to the jist of things..

^ we're going to have to have a chat about the finer points of home-brewing when we next catch up busty My flatmates and I have a cider on the go at the moment with a heating belt around the barrel to keep it at a constant temperature. It's only our second batch brewed; the first turned out pretty average and tasted very yeasty :/

Just home from work and smashing down some Russian Standard....

Just about to go to work and smashin down Swan Draught

 

[Mr Blonde]

I was thinking of getting a proper distillation kit (lab standard) a while back, still considering it though I will probably be flagged as a potential illicit drug manufacturer if I do so.

Was thinking of using it to maybe make up some relatively pure ethanol (at ~96% it forms an azeotrope with water).

I've seen some dodgy home-made lab setups for condensers before... copper tubing though a bucket of ice for example. Did the trick though.

 

[headdah]

Are you talking to Jake or using the term jakey aka pisshead? Honestly I'm confused %)

like jakes comment already

I MEANT BOTH!

 

[agram]

So you're comparing one stereotypical subset of MDMA users with a very uncommon group of alcohol users

Sure am. I love stereotypes! Didn't expect that post to be taken litterally, sorry.

The point regarding MDMA though, is how does that affect you? Unless you're a homophobic bigot who freaks out when another guy hugs you then I see no comparison to the numerous violent and aggressive douchebags all over town on a Friday or Saturday night. That directly affects other people in a negative way. Who gives a fuck about a lightbulb, I can rave in the dark.

That being said, I like alcohol

If you need to take issue with something, hate the people not the drug.

I love MDMA; I love booze. I don't hate people or the drug. It was light-hearted banter. Plus I really wanted to use the word plurfag.

Anyway, these days I'm mostly enjoying as many small brewery ales as I can, as well as some good malts. Wouldn't go near many of the really common tap beers here in Aus. We really have some awful beer.

I prefer to enjoy what I drink, rather than get drunk. If I get drunk, that's cool too. Just not too much.

 

[Divine Moments]

^ ha my bad, sorry. Just hard to tell cos there are too many people who have those sort of 'antidrug' views

 

[drugfukkdrockstar]

I definately think alcohol is an under rated drug by a lot of drug users, the right amount of alcohol puts me in a great, social mood that not that many drugs can live up to.

I completely agree with this!! I LOVE alcohol. Wine and spirits (vodka & tequila) are my drinks of choice. I for a while there started to abuse wine a bit. I have currently banned myself from drinking wine for a few months now and just keeping it at 1 or maybe 2 mixed cocktails a night. I am working on keeping it at one.

Nothing makes me feel so instantly relaxed, warm and fuzzy as alcohol does. It's a wonderful thing if you respect it and your body at the same time. I get bugger all hang overs unless i completely write myself off so much that i forget to drink water before bed. I am generally pretty good though with taking care of myself with it.

I am currently enjoying creating my own low calorie healthy tasty cocktails It's becoming a bit of a hobby. And i generally don't feel the need to have too many spirits.... wine i am out of control, spirit cocktails i seem to respect a lot more

 

[p-man]

For those who don't have the energy from smoking meth, try pulling a charge next time(dose of good ol 1,4-b/GHB)
Gives me all the energy in the world!

Oh and to keep it on the subject, nah I don't drink. Never have, never been a fan.
Last alcoholic beverage I consumed was probably at schoolies about 5 1/2 years ago lol, and even then I was only just drinking to 'fit in'

 

[Mr Blonde]

I'd like to see some information on aldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency in Caucasian populations. Every time I drink I get flushed and feel side effects very easily.

 

[lostNfound]

^ That's called, 'drunk'.

 

[Mr Blonde]

Ha ha, I know but from lower doses of alcohol then expected. One glass of wine can have me turning red like I'm having an allergic reaction. I have heard of antihistamines being recommended for people with aldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency that still want to drink.

 

[bustabraincell]

if its just wine that does that to you, it could be a reaction to the preservatives in it , possibly sulphur dioxide, more prevalent in South American (Argintinian) wines.

There is a product about, which I believe to be a 5% solution of Hydrogen Peroxide which when added to wines heavy in SO2 reacts it out of existance... )I cannot be bothered working out the equation..)

 

[spacejunk]

were you ever much of a drinker in your younger days?

when i was 18/19 the novelty and social acceptability of alcohol worked for me...but that novelty quickly wore off. tired of spending the day after feeling like death - so many wasted days.

i was getting drunk and doing outrageous things all the time, and i was either going to get hurt, beaten, arrested or in some other way harmed if i kept it up. moving out of the parental home meant my half-arsed facade of respectability dropped and i did what i felt like.

at first, people seem offended that you're not drinking when you're at a party or
whatever - "what? you're not drinking?! here, have a beer! c'mon!!"
but i'm not easily swayed by peer pressure or macho shit, and these days everyone knows "i wouldn't touch that shit". some people say that about smack. each to their own.

thanks agram, for reiterating my point - bigotry and drug snobbery!
for the record though, i'm not vegan (just vegetarian) and i hate MDMA.
and i wail a better blues than most, eh.

takes all kinds to make a world

 

[Jakeperson]

Haha, just on the never comment. I do some times drink by itself, mostly I just don't go out any more so when I do it's a good occasion to get high.

I don't mind alcohol, it's not the best but it's not the worst.

 

[bustabraincell]

^if you can't stand your own company when drunk, its hardly fair to drink in public and inflict ones obnoxiousness on them.

 

[Mr Blonde]

if its just wine that does that to you, it could be a reaction to the preservatives in it , possibly sulphur dioxide, more prevalent in South American (Argintinian) wines.

There is a product about, which I believe to be a 5% solution of Hydrogen Peroxide which when added to wines heavy in SO2 reacts it out of existance... )I cannot be bothered working out the equation..)

H2O2 + SO2 => 2H+ + SO4 2-

It oxidizes the sulfur dioxide to H2 plus sulfate ion.

I don't drink wine much, but I do get the effect more pronounced from drinking wine.

 

[Jakeperson]

^if you can't stand your own company when drunk, its hardly fair to drink in public and inflict ones obnoxiousness on them.

Was that directed at me because I never said anything like that. But I still try and keep the public as least involved with my drinking as possible

 

[drug_mentor]

What I'm saying is if you get a room full of plurfags on MDMA they'll dance and be amazed by the colour green if it is bright enough, and unable to change a lightbulb unless the replacement has fifty more watts.

Get a bunch of solid drinkers in a room with their whisky of choice and you'll have fine quality blues wailing, several plates of bacon, and a small library of good poetry.

Fuck you, non-drinkers and plurfags.

God damn I love this post! I don't like to stereotype ravers or MDMA users as 'plurfags' but you definately manage to illustrate the idiocy in certain drug users hate on alcohol.

Personally I am an alcoholic, and while this is not ideal, I make no god damned apologies for it. Alcohol makes me feel more 'me' than almost any drug out there, perhaps I am an obnoxious cunt? Or perhaps alcohol just has a way of making people feel comfortable in their own skin...

Many years I did not binge drink or 'abuse' alcohol so to speak, I took the (seemingly) typical 'educated' drug users view that alcohol was a blight on society and a drug that should be demonised purely because it was/is 'worse' than certain drugs I wish were legal. I learned to love alcohol after being shunned, judged for and in most cases forced to stop using most illicit drugs that I enjoyed on a regular basis.

Alcohol enjoys many benefits, some of which are influenced by legislation, some of which are not, either way an individuals choice to drink is not something they should be chastisised for, and I do think is worth another shot by most haters.