Old time brewer...been out of it a LONG time...

Greetings... I used to brew a metric assload... all of the time. It's all I drank. It's all I took camping, or to parties, or friends houses, or whatever. In college, I couldn't afford to drink as much as I wanted to, so homebrewing filled that niche! At one time, folks might have not known my name... but they'd greet me with 'hey, you're the brewer!'.

Back then, I bought home brew ingredients from Col. John Canaday in Boulder (out of his garage and kitchen), and I ran into Charlie Papazian regularly. I bought Zymurgy issue 2.

Back when the internet was text-based, the only reference to my name was a blue ribbon for a wheat beer entered in a national homebrew competition. Coors approached me over the recipe, but someone 'higher up' thought craft brews were a gimmick, and they passed (the irony is: I HATE Wiezens!).

I attended the Great American Beer Tasting Festivals when there were less than 150 beers to taste. I met Michael Jackson a time or two (R.I.P.)

I brewed a bunch, drank a bunch, entered and won a lot of competitions... and then life intervened. I got married, had kids, things got... complicated. It was easier to buy imported beer, etc., etc., etc.

My kids are grown. The last one is in college and much of my brewing supplies are collecting dust out in the shed. I'm down to the last few bottles of 20 year old mead. For the last couple of years I've been wanting to get back into it. A while ago I built another kegerator (I had one 'back in the day' - kegging homebrew is the ONLY way to go), and drank imports... but I put space for a second faucet with room for a corny next to my 50 litre keg o' something from overseas.

Well, this weekend I dusted off my stuff, scouted out local homebrew shops and was absolutely blown away at what stuff costs now. Back then, homebrew was less than half the price of commercial imports. Nowadays, you're lucky to break even, it appears. But... I still want to brew. I have eight corny kegs, a few 'standard' old-school kegs with the hole for the wooden bung in the side, several glass carboys.... and lots of old, dry rotted tubing, corks, etc.

One other thing I've noticed. I know NOTHING about homebrewing any more. Gelatin for clarity? Never heard of it back then. Irish moss, sure! Gelatin? Now way. Grains in a bag...steeped, not boiled? Gah! That's all news to me. Forums for homebrewing? Internet sites with 6K+ recipes??? Never imagined such a thing!!!

So... an old-school brewer comes hat-in-hand seeking the knowledge to brew, once again.

Thanks for having me.

Guyotron

Welcome back from the depths.

A lot of "brewed 15 years ago and gave it up for other things" brewers around here.

Hopefully we can teach you as much as you can teach us.

Welcome.

Wow, glad to have you back in the scene. As a vet of many other scenes - I must say that it is an honor to have such a vet of my newest scene.

Welcome back!
-Me

Guyotron said:

Thanks for having me.

Guyotron

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We're happy to have you. Things have a come a long way since we were young, for the better I think. We look forward to sharing information with you.

welcome back. i bet you were glad you kept all of your equipment once you got a look at the price tags at the LHBS

Thanks for the warm welcomes!!! Yes, I'm glad I kept a lot of my supplies. Looking at the price of glass carboys now, and realizing that I've broken more than a dozen (likely two dozen!) of them in my past brewing life really brings a tear to my eye. I had three corny kegs that hadn't seen the light of day in probably 15-18 years...and they were still pressurized and still had the dregs of whatever I'd kegged in it last (I was VERY tempted to taste it, but resisted). Man... whatever caused me to stop, back then, stopped it dead cold. I found lots of hoses with picnic taps and god-knows-what clogging the lines. WTF happened to sanitation back then? Sheesh.

Welcome...I am sure you are going to find all kinds of new goodies to enjoy.

Are you planning on sticking to your "old school" roots or modernizing. I would be interested to see which you choose. I bet you could make some killer old school brews the old fashioned way!!

Hey welcome back. I returned after a long hiatus for similar reasons as yours. I too won a ribbon(3rd place) at the National HBC back in 198?? Can't even remember the year. I use to get all of my information out of the libraries...remember them? All of my ingredients came from someones basement. Eventually storefronts started popping up. The old days, gotta love it.
While prices are higher now by buying in bulk, growing your own hops and culturing yeast you can really make some inexpensive beer. I made a Nut Brown ale recently for $10.31 for 5 gallons!! I used homegrown hops, my own yeast culture and all grain. In fact that was before I bought bulk grain. it would probably be $6-7 with bulk grain. Anyway there are bunch of really nice guys and gals here with lots of great advice.
Best, Charlie

Welcome back to brewing


And welcome to HBT

Wow, glad to have you back in the hobby.

Welcome back! It seems to me that you will probably be able to teach us more than we can teach you. It's my guess that you quite literally have forgotten more about brewing than most of us will ever learn.

yes, welcome back! maybe we'll see you (really, drink your brew) at a local gathering.

Welcome back

Thanks, again, all. Well, I just finished brewing my first, new couple of batches: a vanilla porter and a honey ale. They're both extract-based. The porter has about 4# of grains (black patent, chocolate, and dark crystal) plus 8# of amber extract (and whole vanilla bean). The honey ale is all light extract, plus honey. Speaking of honey: While brewing, my gf and I drank some mead I bottled at the end of my last homebrew life. Man, it was awesome - almost Rieslingesque. I wonder what the optimal age of bottled mead is? I have a big, Southern-facing backyard. Sounds like hop growing might be in my immediate future! I need to find the 'local gatherings'

Welcome back to the fold. I brewed for about 7 or 8 years then didn't brew a thing for another 7. Got back into it a few years back. Now have that 3 tier monster sitting in a shed etc etc etc.

I started brewing when I was about 20. There were no Homebrew stores. Best we had was a Hardware store and a eventually a couple of ubrews that sprang up that would sell yeast and extract and some grains. The Internet was Lynx and I don't think I ever used it for finding a recipe etc till I came back into the habit.

This site is great, lots of friendly folks (we have the occasional a-hole but they usually don't last long) on here willing to refresh your brewing memory, and if you are a DIY'er then you will definitely fit right on in.

Do you still have any of your old recipes?

Isn't life grand...I mean, now you don't have to cut your own wood to make a keg...they're metal now! Just pulling your chain.
WELCOME BACK!!! Let me buy you your first round......man, that tasted great.

I don't like Wiezens either, but I LUVS ME SOME WEIZEN!!! Sorry, I couldn't resist...

What kind of guitboxes you have? Here's mine...

Guyotron said:

I need to find the 'local gatherings'

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There's one coming up very quickly! Dredhop 2009 | Hop Barley and the Alers

homebrewer_99 said:

Isn't life grand...I mean, now you don't have to cut your own wood to make a keg...they're metal now! Just pulling your chain.
WELCOME BACK!!! Let me buy you your first round......man, that tasted great.

I don't like Wiezens either, but I LUVS ME SOME WEIZEN!!! Sorry, I couldn't resist...

What kind of guitboxes you have? Here's mine...

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Nice looking bunch of gear!

I have a couple of Strats (Roadhouse and Big Apple 'hot-rodded' models from a few years back), a Martin 000C acoustic, an old Yamaha 12 string, several preamps (Rocktron Voodu Valve and Chameleon), Boss GT-6, SansAmp Tri-AC, and a bunch of pedals feeding a VHT 2/90/2 or Marshall 8008 power amp. I've been in a band for the last umpteen years and have played a lot of shows, so my main stuff shows a lot more wear 'n tear than they should.

Welcome back. I too returned after a long hiatus last year (last brewed around 1989 or 1990) and although things have gotten more expensive, the equipment and ingredients available now are amazing.

:rockin:

joety said:

Welcome back. I too returned after a long hiatus last year (last brewed around 1989 or 1990) and although things have gotten more expensive, the equipment and ingredients available now are amazing.

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Man, you said a mouthful. I don't know how many hundreds of gallons I've brewed in the past... and I've NEVER used liquid yeast before. It all tasted fair to good to excellent, but always tasted...err...like homebrew. Yeast and recipes have come a long way. (could be the steeping of the grains as opposed to boiling them with the rest of the wort like I did back in the day). I brewed up my first two batches since the Cretaceous just last week. I racked them to the secondary fermenters today and sampled a lil'. Man o' man.... I'm one happy camper. The vanilla porter, at room temperature, green, and uncarbonated tastes marvelous. The honey ale is still green but tasty....can't wait for that one to mature. I've since bought a few more carboys and have two more batches on the stove: An Irish red ale, and a German something (recipe o' the month at the LHBS). Damnation. I'm very pleased. I'm waiting for my son to come home. I'm going to whip up 6.5 gallons of mead when the beer's off the stove.

This combines my love of cooking with my love of drinking. It's pretty damned close to heaven. Now we only need half naked cheerleaders coaxing us along as we watch the temperatures and keep everything clean.

Guyotron said:

:rockin:
Now we only need half naked cheerleaders coaxing us along as we watch the temperatures and keep everything clean.

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You can check out the Brew Babes Gallery for that.

Even the dry yeast is 10 times better. I remember starting with Red Star, then something called Whitbread Ale Yeast came out and it improved my beers 100%. The dry yeasts now such as Safale 04 and 05 blow that away.

After yeasts, I'd have to say my next favorite improvement is Starsan. I'm wearing a sweatshirt as I type that was ruined by my last brew with bleach.