Final Brewing Day

I remember a professor in Belgium telling a class about how much Belgian culture had changed during his lifetime.  "Look," he said "you cannot possibly see it, but it is the fabric... the substance that has changed.  When I was young the women, when they made bread, they would cut crosses into every loaf's crust and bless each.  Daily bread was treated like a eucharist.  Can you imagine such superstitions now?"  Actually, we probably cannot imagine such inherent piety.  Even if our devotion as Catholics extends beyond Mass once a week, confession once a month and adoration once in a blue moon, how often do we bless our children, the food that we cook or even ourselves?  I believe that this would make us embarrassed, even in the privacy of our own homes. Arguably such blessings, relics, sacaramentals etc. are embarrassing if we view them as superstitions.  But our Catholic heritage has always been saturated with such things.  It is inextricably intertwined, bound up in them.  Are we losing ourselves?  Are we embarrassed by our forefathers?  We need a renewal and the location of this renewal is the family, the household.  Here we must be proactive.

One of the Opas (Grandpas) in the family was present during a papal visit by JPII years ago.  This simple Texan became immensely excited when the Holy Father passed by, and began to bless the pontiff vigorously.  He has, of course, been teased for this ever since.  Imagine blessing the one man in the world who, more than any other, ought to be the one bestowing blessings!  Yet I am not so sure he had the wrong idea.  Certainly we must not see the Church as an outside entity that grants us special blessings.   A Catholic cultural renewal is going to come from the domestic Church, from our tables and from our beds.  We have a unique blessing to give to the rest of the Church and to the rest of the world.  As priests, prophets and kings of our own households, as icons of Christ to our families we must actively engage what Christ has given to us.

Today, Christ has given us ale: the final brewing day has arrived and it is time to bottle the beer.

Here is what you need: Capper, 50 empty beer bottles (non-screwtop), bottle  caps, racking (siphon) hose, springless bottle filler, auto siphon.

1.)  Sanitize (bottling bucket, racking tubes, bottles, bottle caps, brewing spoon)  Sanitizing the bottles can be enormously time consuming, or you can simply put them facing down in the dishwasher without any detergent.  The heat will sanitize the bottles.

2.)  Rack (siphon) the ale into the the bottling bucket.

3.) In a saucepan, dissolve 3/4 cup of corn sugar  in 2 cups of boiling water for 5 minutes

4.) Stir in the dissolved corn sugar into the ale.  This primes the beer and is what will cause the carbonation to occur within the bottles.

5.)  +Bless the Beer+ (See below)

6.)  Using the siphon hose attached to a bottle filler, fill each bottle.  In order for the ale to fill the bottle, the filler must be pressed against the bottom of the bottle.  To stop the flow of the beer, just lift filler from the bottom.  It is important to leave about 1" of space in each bottle.  However, because the filler is displacing the beer, you can fill the bottles relatively close to the top, and when you lift the filler out there will be just about an inch of space left.

7.)  After filling each, cap the bottle and place in dark, cool location.

We found the following beer blessing at the Catholic Beer Review blog:

Blessing of Beer:

V. Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini.
R. Qui fecit caelum et terram.

V. Dominus vobiscum.
R. Et cum spiritu tuo.

Oremus.

Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisiae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi, et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti; ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corpus et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

R. Amen.

Et aspergatur aqua benedicta.


English translation:

V. Our help is in the name of the Lord.
R. Who made heaven and earth.

V. The Lord be with you.
R. And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.

Bless, + O Lord, this creature beer, which thou hast deigned to produce from the fat of grain: that it may be a salutary remedy to the human race, and grant through the invocation of thy holy name; that, whoever shall drink it, may gain health in body and peace in soul. Through Christ our Lord.

R. Amen.

Sprinkle with holy water.