No, not tea, beer! Have trouble finding a beer you like in the land of wine and cheese? Make your own - then you only have yourself to blame!
Does anyone have a clue where i might be able to buy malts ond hops in normandie? I cam but barly grain buy not sure if i could go through the whole process of malting, or if i have the time if i wanted .
David, I appera to have a tea chest full of 'clutter' mainly Home Brew Shop catalogues it seems. No idea how I forgot their name before. Thanks for brewferm - I'm going to have to get the power that is indoors ready to let me possess the large cellar next year, then I can start again.
Oh My.... Brian I just checked out the Home Brew Shop and they have conical fermentors. I had one in Boston and it makes brewing easier and better.... I think I know what I'm going to ask for for my birthday! That said I just checked out the Brewferm website, and they have a fairly nice list of distributors by region in France. If you're looking for something local here's the link: brewferm Happy Brewing!
Andy - stretched my mind and the place with a phenomenal amount of beer stuff is the Home Brew Shop http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/ so obvious I am not sure how I forgot it. I know they have hundreds of different malts, yeast and so on, probably worth a perusal.
I have tried a home brew kit here which My partner bought me in a kit in the UK.
I would love to have a go at 'real' brewing, so thank for the link Trisha
I haven't tried here yet. In England I had an abundance of suppliers for all I needed, so I tried making bitters, porters, lagers, roggenbier and various others. I have as yet to find all the stuff I need to do it from scratch so will probably need to import from sources such as Trisha's suggestion and a couple of sources I have for stuff like rye malt and beer yeasts for bockbier from Germany. I had a supplier near Peterborough who I know has closed down where I got all the bits and pieces particular to making porter. Mine came out a bit browner than darker, like a slightly lighter Beamish. I have had a spectacular number of total failures, once finding four five gallon plastic barrels had burst and a stickly goo all over the floor.
Decide what kind of beer you want, look at recipes and then look for sources of the ingredients you need. I have tried kit beers but find them mostly a bit 'samey' and characterless, so I avoid them. I keep bees so also use honey for some brews instead of sugar, which dos not work too well with most kits. However, the bottom line is that when you do it and can sit back with a glass and do one of those beery 'aaaah's you'll think it worth the effort.
http://www.balliihoo.co.uk/ brilliant for all home brew stuff,they deliver to France,postage is £3 up to 500g,had two orders from them so far,wine equipment not beer but they do both.