The ginger beer I made a few weeks ago is finally ready. If you don’t know what I am talking about see my post “Gorgeous Ginger Beer Goodness”.

We’ve tried a few bottles already (couldn’t hold out for an entire month) and are pretty happy with the results.

But I made quite a bit of a mistake by using several of those olive oil bottles with the swing lever lids to bottle my ginger beer.

I realised this mistake a week ago when I looked into the garden shed to see how my ginger beer babies were brewing.

Normal beer bottle caps let you slowly release the pressure in the bottle by varying the angle of attack from your trusty bottle opener. These flip-lid, wire-hinged bottles however, were going to flip open all of a sudden and I knew for sure that the carbon dioxide dissolved in the ginger beer liquid under very intense pressure would suddenly turn into gas and send the contents of the bottle over my entire backyard. I probably haven’t told you yet, but yes it would be a very stupid idea to open any of the bottles inside the kitchen.

So what to do? The first one I opened I realised the gravity of the problem as I kneeled out on our back lawn, one hand nervously wringing the neck of the slender bottle, the other hand trembling at the little wire lever holding the cap tightly on. I slowly pried it out, holding back the pressure tightly with one hand on the cap.

Phweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. The pressure was too great, my hand was pushed off the lid and the entire contents, albeit a mouthful or two, showered the lawn and myself in ginger beer.

What a waste of good ginger beer.

I came up with an idea yesterday after several sleepless nights. The plan was to hold a bowl over the lid and then have the whole lot positioned over a big stainless steel mixing bowl that we bought a few weeks ago to make large batches of Monica’s incredible gingernut biscuits. Did I tell you already how great a cook my wife is?

I decided to film the whole thing just in case both of us failed to survive the bottle opening and the medics arriving on the scene would have some understanding of what had happened.

The entire clip is about a minute and a half long. I planned to just start the video, walk over to the bottle and open it straight away and document the resulting mess. But it quickly turned into a hesitant nervous discussion on how best to do it while avoiding getting our eyesight ruined with the shrapnel of an exploding glass bottle.

I completely forgot to mention the taste results of this batch. Those of you that have already booked airline flights over here to Brighton to try the wonders of this elixir, need not cancel their holidays – the polls are in and this batch is a winner.

That’s right…this ginger beer is bloody awesome.

Quite a dry taste, not too sweet like some previous seasons have been and I think the inclusion of several alternatives to caster suger, such as honey and muscovado have been a welcome addition to the magnificent flavour.

Alcohol content? You wanted to get hammered on this stuff didn’t you? Well let me tell you, drinking it makes me happy. I’m not sure whether that’s the sugar doing the talking, a little bit of homebrew alcohol showing it’s colours or just the joy of tasting the fruits of my own labour, but to be honest I don’t care which it is. It gets me feeling all happy, feeling good and fuzzy about the world and so in my books that’s a good thing.

But an interesting note. The ginger beer of the exploding bottle video above was completely flat and tasted quite dull. Not sure if this was due to the speed of the opening or maybe contact with stainless steel or what. I’ll leave you scientists to ponder over that one while I spend my more important time sitting in the sun sipping ginger beer. Maybe it’s the bubbles of nothing that really make it something.

Till next time.