It’s around 9pm on the 20th May 2019, and I’ve been in police custody for about eight hours after being arrested for throwing a banana milkshake at Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage. I’m very tired and want to get home to my family, who the police have made me aware have been receiving threatening messages over the internet all day. I am brought to see the desk sergeant who is going to charge me with common assault and criminal damage. I sign a form and am given an opportunity to make a response to the charges. I decline to make a statement.

The desk sergeant, a tall man with a low booming voice more reminiscent of an army drill sergeant looks down at me before I’m released and states: “Mr Crowther, you’ve done something very foolish today. Very humorous, but very foolish.”

That’d make a cracking name for a beer, I think to myself.

Note: If you disagree with any processes I’ve followed and want to do something different or fancy swapping out an ingredient…go for it! Homebrewing is about experimentation and adaptation, so please feel free to put your own stamp on the recipe. The method of putting bananas in the mash is adapted from Homebrew All-Stars by Denny Conn and Drew Beechum.

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RECIPE

Target Original Gravity (OG) — 1.061
Target Final Gravity (FG) — 1.011
Target Alcohol By Volume (ABV) — 6.6%
Target International Bitterness Units (IBU) — 40
Batch Size — 20 Litres

INGREDIENTS

5kg Overripe bananas (unpeeled weight)

1kg Maris Otter malt (or other pale malt such as Golden Promise)
1kg Vienna malt
1kg Oat malt
500g Melanoidin malt
500g Wheat malt

29L Water total (9L for mash, 20L for sparge)

15g Mosaic hops (added first wort/start of boil)
100g Huell Melon hops (added 5 minutes before the end of boil)

500g Lactose (added 10 minutes before the end of boil)

1 Packet Mangrove Jack’s Empire Ale Yeast (10g)

METHOD

Mash Duration — 1 Hour
Mash Liquor Volume — 9 Litres
Total Grist Weight — 4kg
Liquor to Grist Ratio — 2.2 L/kg (2.2 Litres for every kg of grain)
Mash Temperature — 67ºC
Sparge Liquor Volume — 20 Litres
Sparge Liquor Temperature — 75ºC
Boil Duration — 1 Hour
Fermentation Temperature — 18ºC

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You’ll need to buy the bananas about 3-4 days ahead of your brew day, as they’ll need to be fully yellow and beginning to turn black. They’ll mash more easily and there will be more simple sugars we can make use of as they become overripe. It doesn’t matter if your bananas are bendy or straight, despite the historical assertions from our current Prime Minister, there are no EU regulations preventing the sale of bendy bananas.

Peel the bananas and mash them with a potato masher in a large cooking pot. You want the banana paste to be about the consistency of honey. If mashing alone doesn’t achieve this consistency add a little bit of water to dilute until you get the desired thickness.

Warm this mushy banana mixture to your mash temperature of 67ºC so that you don’t cool down the mash. Make sure to keep stirring the mixture so it doesn’t scorch the bottom of the pan.

““It doesn’t matter if your bananas are bendy or straight, despite the historical assertions from our current Prime Minister.””

Mashing and stirring the bananas up into a paste like this can be tough work on your arms. If you need some encouragement I recommend thinking about Brexit Party councillor David Mincher, who, whilst campaigning for the 2019 general election in Hartlepool, boasted of plotting to bury a pigs head under a mosque and claimed Muslims were “outbreeding us” (among using other disgusting Fascist slurs for different ethnic minorities). Then play Bash the Fash by Oi Polloi at high volume. You’ll find yourself wanting to mash something vigorously at this point, so I recommend channelling that into the bananas.

Add your grains and water to the mash tun as with a normal grain bill, then add the warm mushy banana mix in with the rest of the grain. You don’t need to add any additional water to account for the weight of the bananas, just add the usual amount of water you need for the grain bill (1 litre to 450g tends to be what I find works best, so I’d go with 9 litres for this brew).

From here on you have a pretty standard brew schedule. Don’t worry too much about the banana messing with the mash consistency, it practically melts into the mash water and shouldn’t give you any bother. I always batch sparge my brews with 20 litres of water at 75ºC but feel free to use whatever method you normally use.

If, mid-brew, you find yourself feeling it somewhat inappropriate to brew a beer celebrating the dousing of Nigel Farage in a harmless sticky liquid, or you feel a modicum of sympathy for his embarrassment, remember he once threatened to “pick up a rifle and join the front lines” if Brexit wasn’t delivered. But that was just a joke. A joke about shooting MPs less than a year after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot dead by a convicted far-right terrorist.

Once sparged, boil as per your equipment. I am a fan of first wort hopping; adding the bittering hops pre-boil, which I feel gives you a smoother bitterness. Add the lactose 10 minutes before the end of your boil, and make sure you stir well to ensure it’s completely dissolved [If safe to do so, you can use some of the boiling wort to dissolve the lactose before adding so that it doesn’t scotch to the bottom of your pan/elements—Ed]. Add aroma hops 5 minutes towards the end of the boil.

Cool the boiled wort to 18ºC, aerate the wort, and pitch the yeast. I don’t bother with a starter or rehydrating (and I’ve never had any issues) and add the dry yeast straight to the wort, but feel free to do this if this is your usual process.

Your original gravity (OG) may well be way off what I’ve listed, the exact amount of gravity added from the bananas seems to vary. I would, therefore, recommend you’re absolutely certain fermentation is complete before bottling/kegging. I do this by making sure I have the same gravity reading 48 hours after the last.

The resulting beer will be a sweet, fruity, thick milkshake IPA that I absolutely cannot recommend you douse a fascist scumbag with if you get the chance, and should be pretty tasty, too.

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Editor’s note: At Pellicle we do not endorse violence of any kind, although whatever you decide to do with your homebrew is entirely up to you.