Mein Brewmaster

Most people probably don't think of Bangladesh as a Muslim country, due to it's closeness to India, but it is. Yes, there are Hindi as well as other religions here, but Muslim accounts for 90% of the population's religion. And actually, Bangladesh is the 4th largest Muslim population in the world (so says Wikipedia).

With that being the case, it is illegal to buy alcohol here (other than the rubbing kind). We do have a commissary, where wine, beer & spirits may be purchased, but the selection is somewhat small and not always the most fresh.

So being as mein spouse is what you might call a bit of a beer connoisseur, we hauled his brewing goodies to Dhaka. He ordered a few new kits from a great brewing supplier in the US, Midwest Supplies, and today he was all things beer in the kitchen.

Our house has smelled like a brewery all afternoon! All brewed, stirred, cooled and tucked into its little closet to age for 4 weeks and then into the bottles to sit for another 3-4 weeks before the taste test can commence.

I can't tell you the first thing about brewing beer. Oh, but just ask Chris, and he'll get on his soapbox about what a difficult process it is here in Bangladesh. He can go into detail about the problems here distilling water, having to sanitize 3 times, gas pressure being uneven from city making a "hard boil" difficult, airbourne pollutants, lack of availability of proper equipment and supplies (note handmade Bangladesh pot), general contamination probability to the wort. It's complex people!

Guess hailing from the land of Anheuser-Busch and living in Wisconsin for a few years has not helped the addiction. He is a Bangladesh beer pioneer... and training our daughter to follow in his footsteps!