bierhunter
Active Member
Hi all,
I just wanted to relate a tale. I have a friend who has always criticized my homebrew. She likes her Heineken and says why can't I brew anything as good as that? Well to be fair I've only been brewing for a year and my early efforts were pretty bad. But slowly I've refined my technique and just promised myself there would be gradual improvement. I added temperature control, went all grain,, and in short shored up just about every sloppy technique I had. I ordered the Heineken clone allgrain kit from Austin Homebrew and gave this lager the time it needed. Since I don't normally drink Heineken I wasn't sure how it turned out. It tasted ok to me. I don't mind the lighter beers but never usually order Heineken. Anyways the moment of truth came last night. I gave her a sample and just said it was my latest beer. She had the usual look on her face and took a quick sip and said a casual 'that's not bad'. As we were trying her homemade wine as well it took her awhile to get to the next sip, but when she took it a funny look came over her face and she looked at me and excitedly yelled out 'O My Gawd It's Heineken!" As I had not told her what it was her reaction validated my whole brewing career so far. I guess the only thing I could compare it to is if I had entered it in competition and got a good score. I not only nailed the style but the exact beer. Of course I have to give Austin Hoomebrew's excellent kits most of the credit, but I still have to brew it right or it doesn't matter how good the ingredients are. The bottom line is that I'm proud right now, after almost a year of many disappointments I feel like I passed a brewing test. Of course I know I still have lots to learn, but it's moments like these that keep me going. I know it wasn't an imperial stout or anything fancy, but to me getting that right means I have all the basics down and I can go on and up from there.
Thanks to lots of people on here for their help, and sorry for the long post.
BH
I just wanted to relate a tale. I have a friend who has always criticized my homebrew. She likes her Heineken and says why can't I brew anything as good as that? Well to be fair I've only been brewing for a year and my early efforts were pretty bad. But slowly I've refined my technique and just promised myself there would be gradual improvement. I added temperature control, went all grain,, and in short shored up just about every sloppy technique I had. I ordered the Heineken clone allgrain kit from Austin Homebrew and gave this lager the time it needed. Since I don't normally drink Heineken I wasn't sure how it turned out. It tasted ok to me. I don't mind the lighter beers but never usually order Heineken. Anyways the moment of truth came last night. I gave her a sample and just said it was my latest beer. She had the usual look on her face and took a quick sip and said a casual 'that's not bad'. As we were trying her homemade wine as well it took her awhile to get to the next sip, but when she took it a funny look came over her face and she looked at me and excitedly yelled out 'O My Gawd It's Heineken!" As I had not told her what it was her reaction validated my whole brewing career so far. I guess the only thing I could compare it to is if I had entered it in competition and got a good score. I not only nailed the style but the exact beer. Of course I have to give Austin Hoomebrew's excellent kits most of the credit, but I still have to brew it right or it doesn't matter how good the ingredients are. The bottom line is that I'm proud right now, after almost a year of many disappointments I feel like I passed a brewing test. Of course I know I still have lots to learn, but it's moments like these that keep me going. I know it wasn't an imperial stout or anything fancy, but to me getting that right means I have all the basics down and I can go on and up from there.
Thanks to lots of people on here for their help, and sorry for the long post.
BH