“Lent has come, why not wait to drink with eagerness?”
Mardi Gras has come and gone once again. No doubt, locals and global citizens celebrated one way or another. Certainly, the folks of Athens did their part. For the more devout, this is the time to pay for a delightful and debaucherous time of enjoyment. There is a multitude of things they would describe as sinful to give up. Shockingly, one of these things is drinking. To those who decide to give up drinking, either by choice or coaxing, I have a solution to offer so that these forty-ish days are filled with anticipation rather than impatience and possible withdrawal: homebrewing.
If you’re going to wait to drink, brew your own beverage at home while you wait and give yourself a reward for good behavior. It’s a great hobby that’s been practiced for centuries and can be done at any level. It can be as easy as leaving fruit juice, sugar, and yeast in a jar with an airlock, or as difficult as putting supplements in water to make it into a facsimile of German tap water. The gift of our modern day is that we live with a multitude of resources and recipes to guide our hands.
Aside from assorted literature, you can check at any local library, a great resource you can join is the American Homebrewers Association. This association is not only a good compendium of recipes, but a community to bounce ideas and ask advice from. For the fellow Gourmands, this is the tip of the iceberg. Beyond beer and wine, you can now begin to think about homemade mead, hot sauce, and vinegar.
It should be noted, Ohio has laws on alcohol creation that need to be acknowledged and abided. Homebrewing is legal in every state, but you absolutely cannot sell your homebrew without a permit from the Ohio Division of Liquor Control.
Noah Gruenberg is a junior studying music composition at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Noah? Email him at ng119217@ohio.edu.
