Home Brew
A friend left me two bottles of home brew beer he made himself with labels with a picture of his two little girls in elf costumes. He made the beer and gave it out as Christmas presents. A great idea. And that got me thinking about this time years ago when Patti and I were living in an apartment in Huntington NY and I tried to brew my own batch of beer. I used Grolsh and a French beer bottle that is like Grolsh. These bottles are very thick, like 20 ounces and have a flip top. I did something wrong because when the brew was in the bottles and fermenting in the basement they started to explode. One day I heard ?BANG? and couldn?t figure it out. Then a day later I heard ?BANG? and still nothing. Finally I traced it to the basement where I found the wreckage of 20 thick green and brown bottles, some still alive, some broken with glass as far away as 20 feet. Scared and worried about my own safety, I immediately grabbed an old military style tarp made out of canvas that I had down there and threw it on the bottles. I was saved. Not sure what to do, I thought that I would take the remaining bottles, covered, and let them sit in the hot sun and explode. And that is what I did. For the next two days that covered up bomb factory sat in the blazing son and exploded all but one bottle. I ended up taking the final bottle and with heavy work gloves on, old motorcycle eye goggles on, the kind that the airplane barons used to wear with leather helmets, and a heavy coat, I flipped the top off the last bottle. The overly carbonated beer shot about 3 feet in the air but no explosion.