I thought about starting with something poetic, but that really isn’t my style. I have been what many call a beer snob since my first taste of draft Guinness. That was quite a few years ago, and I have moved far beyond Guinness in my choice of beer selection. From the northwest originally, I lived in a beer culture, Deschutes, Rogue, Full Sail, Widmer, these were all local brews to me. But after living in the southeast for several years now the ability to try new and interesting brews was waning, or so I thought.
For my birthday I received a gift, a Mr. Beer home brewing kit. It was a basic starter kit, nothing elaborate, though a few of the premium beer mixes were included. It made brewing not only accessible but very easy, the whole process took less than 30 minutes start to finish, and in 7-10 days I had 2 gallons of beer ready for bottling. It was all well and good, beer wasn’t bad either, but I knew there was more. Lying just beneath the surface was a nerd’s paradise.
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, by Charlie Papazian, this is not an idiots guide to homebrewing, this was a guide written by a beer lover for other beer lovers. Much has been written about him, but the first thing I noticed was his background - no degrees in fermentation studies here - an engineer, even better, a nuclear engineer. This wasn’t just hope, it was inspiration.
I brewed my first batch of real beer (admittedly from a pre-packaged kit) on April 11th, 2010 and haven’t looked back since. I have made a lot of mistakes along the way but to date haven’t ruined a batch yet. I’ve learned to be more and more obsessive about the sanitation, and gotten more and more adventurous with the spices. As of today I still have not made the leap to all-grain brewing but the day is coming.
For my birthday I received a gift, a Mr. Beer home brewing kit. It was a basic starter kit, nothing elaborate, though a few of the premium beer mixes were included. It made brewing not only accessible but very easy, the whole process took less than 30 minutes start to finish, and in 7-10 days I had 2 gallons of beer ready for bottling. It was all well and good, beer wasn’t bad either, but I knew there was more. Lying just beneath the surface was a nerd’s paradise.
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, by Charlie Papazian, this is not an idiots guide to homebrewing, this was a guide written by a beer lover for other beer lovers. Much has been written about him, but the first thing I noticed was his background - no degrees in fermentation studies here - an engineer, even better, a nuclear engineer. This wasn’t just hope, it was inspiration.
I brewed my first batch of real beer (admittedly from a pre-packaged kit) on April 11th, 2010 and haven’t looked back since. I have made a lot of mistakes along the way but to date haven’t ruined a batch yet. I’ve learned to be more and more obsessive about the sanitation, and gotten more and more adventurous with the spices. As of today I still have not made the leap to all-grain brewing but the day is coming.
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