It was always going to happen. Eventually one of us had to think "hey, we should brew our own beer!". Well, it happened. I'm not sure who it was that said it, but it was met by a rousing "hell yeah!" and everyone got a rise.

After visiting the local home brew shop, we assessed the figures and worked out what we'd need to purchase. We were told we should purchase 1 tank... that makes 30 Long necks, the equivalent of 60 stubbies. Every 2 weeks, we'd get 60 stubbies, not bad at all... but we drink a fair bit, so we decided to get 3 tanks. Let's do this thing properly.

When making home brew, one thing that they don't provide you with is the bottles to put your beer in. It's set us a challenge, we need 90 long neck bottles in 2 weeks. So far we're right on track. Problem is, we need another 90 2 weeks after that. It's a chore, but if we have to drink, then we'll drink.

It began on a Friday night... a couple of long necks after work and some cranking music got us all in the mood. All except Butcher, he was off having after work drinks and would join us later.

There is now a lot of pictures of us making beer... they are not all that interesting really. They're pretty much just pictures of us with cans and buckets and shit like that. But read on... you never know what suprises await you.

This picture shows a few of our supplies for the night, note that we've got 3 long necks to drink as we work, this keeps us focussed on the ultimate goal... our delicious saviour, beer.

The beer mix stuff looks pretty disgusting when you first open the tin... but like a caterpillar it will go into it's coocoon and in 5 weeks it will be set free like a beautiful butterfly. Then we'll drink it and get really drunk and jump around and yell and stuff.

This is pretty exciting right here, look at the concentration on Stu's face. He's taking this seriously, one little slip and he's likely to miss the container.

Directions for making beer:

1. 1/3 fill the tank with hot water.

2. Add the beer mix and associated sugars

3. Stir it up.

4. 3/4 fill the tank with cold water, wait for the temperature to drop and sprinkle yeast.

5. Wait patiently for 5 weeks.

When brewing beer you really need to treat it like a friend. In the following photo I share a drink with the fellas. We're pretty much just chillin. Hanging out. They don't have a lot to say, occasionally one will pass a bubble through its little air nozzle and I'm happy. I tell them loads of interesting stories, I talk to them about past beers that I've drank, beers that I plan to drink in the future. They bubble away merrily and I know they're happy.

In saying that you need to treat it like a friend, it could be said that you really need to treat it like a friend from Queensland. Those damn queenslanders always come down here and whinge "oh, it's so cold here, how do you stand the cold" and shit like that... it fucken pisses me off... and beer is the same, except that if it gets too cold it dies (if only that happened to Queenslanders). We decided that our best bet for keeping them warm was to leave them in the bath.

This next photo is a couple of days on, the kids are progressing very well. We're a bit scared that one of them is not progressing as it should. it's the one on the left. Look it at! It looks no different to the others, but it most certainly is. Hopefully it's disability is minor, like a stutter, and not something more serious like a tendency to bite stray animals.

on to the flood..