Authenticity

Strange to rent a room in an industrial town 200km away and find your own home town on the interior decor. Now that we all hypersensitive to 'deep fakes', there is a temptation to wonder if it is genuine - but if you are going to fake something like this, why choose a name no-one has heard of, that was nevertheless a real company

Three generations of the Hitchman family ran a brewery in what is now the town centre, from 1796 to 1890. For a time, it was the town's largest employer. It was sold as a going concern and a limited company, keeping the name going until 1924, and finally stopping brewing in 1931. However, it continued producing 'aerated' (carbonated?) water there until 1970. The internet has revealed to me that, for a while, I used a hairdresser whose business was in what were the brewery offices

From what I can discover, 'stone' ginger beer was a popular, mildly alcoholic, drink, but not really beer. Ginger, lemons, sugar and a 'plant', comprising bacteria and yeasts, similar to sourdough bread starter, to create the fermentation. Glazed, hand-made stoneware was sealed with a wired cork, like champagne, to keep the beer lightly pressurised. The product was cloudy and had sediment, so no point putting it in expensive glass bottles. Some of it went a long way: there was a significant export trade to America. The internet is full of pictures of stone bottles like these, from a multitude of breweries

What I thought was a reaction to vaccines turns out to be the real thing - a nasty little virus. No grandson hugs for me! I've tried a few remedies, but not yet ginger beer