The atheistforums.org beer thread.

[Jackalope]

You just reminded me of something that happened many, many years ago after the whole family had been berry-picking at some farm or other. We had tons of the things and my Dad decided to try pressing the juice and bottling it in plastic fizzy drinks bottles with sugar to make a light fruity drink. Well, we forgot all about this stuff for months, until someone found several bottles of it tucked away somewhere. Of course it had all fermented by now; in fact, to give an idea of just how much, the gas had built up so much that the bottoms of the bottles had been totally blown out of shape. They were more solid balloon than bottle. Mind, it was the most amazing drop of whatever it was we ever tasted. God alone knows what the alcohol content was - it can't have been anywhere near legal.

You're lucky the bottles didn't explode. It's been known to happen.

It may not have been as alcoholic as you may think - there's only so much fermentable sugar in the juice, and at some point you're going to hit the yeast's alcohol tolerance level, which will stop the fermentation hard.

I bet that hooch was tasty. It's easier to do than a lot of people think - we've been doing it for at least 5,000 years. My pet theory is that written language developed as a means to record beer recipes (I'm joking of course. Or am I?)

Dunno how it is in your part of the world, but where I'm at, as long as you got there by fermentation alone (i.e. you didn't distill it), it's legal.

P.S. This stuff I'm drinking could become a problem - the cheap commercial mead runs about $13 for a 750ml bottle, and this stuff cost about $2 a bottle to make. I think I'll take a nap.

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Just broke into a homebrewed grape mead (honey wine) that I started back in January. Drinks like juice, and goes straight to your head. 14% alcohol - wheeee!!!

I'm going to brew a mead this fall. Only two gallons though...that's the size of my tank.

It's really pretty easy - way easier than beer. I've been fermenting in 1 gallon juice jugs with a rubber stopper and airlock, cause the two 8 gallon fermenters were full of ale.