On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 09:41:54 +0100, Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
(snips)
back in the days when it was a clandestine activity.

Cor :-!)
So Chancellor Reginald Maudling is your hero as well then ? !!
Actually, where I was it wasnt particularly clandestine, technically
illegal to home brew beer and ale but nobody seemed to worry abut it,
which is probably why Reg. did away with the regs.
Home wine making, as far as I remember, was never illegal.

I used to make about a gallon of rather too sweet dandelion and another
of parsnip

our favourites - burnet, blackberry, elderflower.
but it took ages to pick enough burnets to make a gallon

1955 when
I made five gallons of beer: after that I used to beg a bit of brewers'
yeast from the local brewery, from where I used to buy my crushed malted
barley. (Rebagged into smaller units, and with several trips home on my
bicycle.)

Cor ! Me too, sack across the bicycle crossbar and walk it home from
the brewery, 'twas amazing what got, errr, 'liberated' from that
brewery !
Malt extract was sometimes available from a baker as well, I dont
remember what they used it for ??
I was a few years later than you with my first beer, about 1958/9/ish