Couple die after drinking homemade beer in South Africa

[NightFlight]

Whilst looking up that earlier Mozambique reference....

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/12/contaminated-beer-at-funeral-kills-56-in-mozambique
... oops. Edit: I made a funny earlier thinking the traditional drink included the crocodile bile... my bad. This was in fact, just a plainly sad story.

Reading further, Forbes magazine reported that a study done by Professor Nyazema (University of Zimbabwe, Central African Journal of Medicine in 1984 and 1985) shows croc bile is not so toxic as anecdotally assumed by 20th century colonial medical literature.

 

[NightFlight]

.

 

[The_Professor]

Still no real follow up article with the results of any investigation but surprise there is an article about another couple dying from homemade beer.

One comment below the article says, "The previous couple did NOT die from homemade beer, rather from ingesting household spiritus with their tea............". Not sure if that is anything more than rumor/fake news.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

And someone also died from drinking fish cleaner.
There are no toxic ingredients in making beer. There are no combinations of those ingredients that can create such a lethal toxin that kills you after one drink. Most poisons can't do that unless you ingest copious amounts of it.
It is a bogus story. I don't mean that it didn't happen, I mean that what they made isn't beer.
Fermented pineapples is not homemade beer.
You can call it that, but it isn't.
There are a LOT of articles out there talking about the dangers of making pineapple alcohol drinks.
It is not beer

 

[AJinJacksonville]

Even if there's some pseudo-toxic compound underlying in homebrewing that someone stumbles upon on accident and causes one to writhe in pain and die, I'd still 1) take chances with my homebrew and probably all of your guys' homebrew and 2) prefer it over meth. If you've never looked at the ingredients to make meth, it's frightening (not a great idea to google it on a work/government computer though).

 

[The_Professor]

A better article about both couples.

In the article:
It is believed both couples died after adding almost pure 97 per cent alcohol in the form of ethanol into their home brew.....
A relative, who asked not to be named, told IOL Media: ‘They drank home-made ginger beer which apparently had pure alcohol mixed into it.....
It added that in Kenya the locally brewed Chang’aa beer can include jet fuel or embalming fluid or battery acid......

 

[Stormcrow]

A better article about both couples.

In the article:
It is believed both couples died after adding almost pure 97 per cent alcohol in the form of ethanol into their home brew.....
A relative, who asked not to be named, told IOL Media: ‘They drank home-made ginger beer which apparently had pure alcohol mixed into it.....
It added that in Kenya the locally brewed Chang’aa beer can include jet fuel or embalming fluid or battery acid......

Thanks for finding this. Ignorance+desperation=tragedy.
By the way, how exactly is a ban on alcohol (assuming it's normally available in stores that are allowed to be open) supposed to combat COVID?

 

[Lefou]

Thanks for finding this. Ignorance+desperation=tragedy.
By the way, how exactly is a ban on alcohol (assuming it's normally available in stores that are allowed to be open) supposed to combat COVID?

It doesn't. In my opinion, the reason the retail and distribution networks are closed is because they don't contribute significant sums of money back into the right pockets of whomever regulates the racket. A petty crook like Al Capone didn't get rich all by himself.
My local stores all stayed open. In one location they were advertising $39/bottle distilled products as an acceptable ingredient for alternative hand sanitizers.
Can you imagine wasting a bottle of Patron or Grey Goose for this? In NJ where I reside a "price gouging" law was instituted and stated any item or service sold to the public for profit couldn't exceed a 10% sales value when compared to retail.

 

[s_a_m_a_n_t_h_a]

Oh my... hmm, natural selection I guess.