When you know you "made it" as a brewer

What was the first comment you heard of the first incident where you really felt like an actual brewer?

This weekend, my wife was in a wedding and the only beer at the reception was Bud/Bud Light. They had wine, but it was too sweet and you had to pay for the cocktail. So I decided to degrade myself and have some Bud. Hey its free and will still get me drunk, so what the hell.

Well my wife came over when I was drinking it, took a sip, had the most disgusted look on her face and said, "Wow, your beer tastes way better than this" and handed the glass right back to me.

EDIT: sorry for any confusion, but I don't me "made it" like u are now a pro brewer, just that moment you realzed, hey I make damn good beer

Right on! That's always a good feeling! I think I knew I "made it" as a brewer once I was able to complete AG brew days without much going wrong. It takes a while to get everything down, but once you've done it for a while you really feel like you're a brewer. Where in Cleveland you hail from? Euclid here, originally Concord.

Having the most well known local pro-brewer taste my Rye IIPA and saying it was "perfect".

When you fill a glass out of the keg for someone, they drink it, and then go back 3-4 more times
I had my first person this weekend recommend that I put a tip jar on my keezer. I took that as "I'd pay for this, it's good enough for money"..
It was BM's "Just Another Brew Day" Wit.

rsmith179 said:

Right on! That's always a good feeling! I think I knew I "made it" as a brewer once I was able to complete AG brew days without much going wrong. It takes a while to get everything down, but once you've done it for a while you really feel like you're a brewer. Where in Cleveland you hail from? Euclid here, originally Concord.

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I'm originally from the Buffalo, NY area, and I am now living in Brunswick, but I work on the East Side.

I think it was when a good friend of mine, who is a seasoned beer drinker (hails from Germany), told me that my weizen certainly wasn't the worst he's ever had. Coming from someone who used to drink 4-5 weizens a day, I'd say that's a small accomplishment.

/He also drank it only a week into the bottle. I told him to hang on to it for at least another week. I can only imagine the esters/fusels and "green" tastes he must have caught off it.

When I handed a glass to my father-in-law, who drinks Bud Light at 33 degrees, he snarled, chopped his jaws and let out an "EW!, that tastes like malt and hops!"...I knew I had made it. And coincidentally, he NEVER has pulled from my kegs again which leaves only the beer I drank missing from my kegs.

I still dont think that I have "arrived" or "made it" as a brewer... but I dont have to buy commercial beer anymore. I dont trust the opinions of friends or people who cannot be impartial because they are staring me in the face at the time. Id only trust the opinion of an impartial judge probably.

Not sure how I'd define "Made it" but I also felt pretty accomplished when I took a few homebrews to a tasting at the local brewpub, the brewmaster really loved the stuff I brought, his wife thought it was awesome as well.

The Pol said:

I still dont think that I have "arrived" or "made it" as a brewer... but I dont have to buy commercial beer anymore. I dont trust the opinions of friends or people who cannot be impartial because they are staring me in the face at the time. Id only trust the opinion of an impartial judge probably.

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FWIW - I asked my friends to write down their thought of my beer and email it to me. I even told them that I don't trust what they say to me face to face because we're friends. So far, I've received quite a few very helpful comments that I plan to consider for upcoming brews. I like my beer...a LOT...but obviously I'm rather biased. If I'm going to get better, I need candid comments so I can gauge exactly what's going on.

It is like when I fly with a NEW FO... and he asks how he did on the trip. Well, I am usually pretty easy on them, but when I am talking to my buddies my opinion of how poorly they performed becomes much stronger.

It is hard to be encouraging if you tell someone that they need to go back to school and learn basic arithmatic. To be a teacher or a friend you have to much more diplomatic. This is why I prefer the opinions of strangers, they get to the heart of the matter.

Id enter some competitions and get some good, unbiased and educated feedback.

This weekend when I served Centennial Blonde out of my keg. FIL liked it and wife's cousin went back for 3 big glasses. I know he wasn't just being nice.

Of course, that is a pretty light beer, but only my second AG batch, so I'm geeked to try something else soon. And that stuff is leaving the keg fairly fast...

Kegged beer escapes when you're not looking, I swear.

I don't think I've 'made it' like I'm a pro or anything, but I definitely feel confident in my position as homebrewer. I brew AG, understand at least the basic concepts (why you'd mash low/high but not the specifics of the reactions), know a little about BJCP, etc. My palate is improving and while my beer isn't amazing neither does it taste like goat piss. I've got a lot to learn, but I've also come a long way.

when friends and family request that you brew a patch for a party or wedding. And they will pay for all the ingredients.

I thought I make pretty good beer, but I'm biased. So when I shipped a bottle of my Drunk Owl Sour Mango across the country to Denny Conn and he replied with...

"Hi Jim,
Sorry to take so long getting back to ya...it's been weird here...

Let me just say...FREAKIN' FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!! Don't know what I can say about the mango strong that hasn't been said already. A totally delicious beer, perfectly balanced. Sour up front, but the the mango kicks in mid palate. A throughly enjoyable experience."

I'm still not as good as I want to be, but that made me realize that I'm doing OK and heading in the right direction

I was stopped on the side of the road during a bike ride last Wednesday by a couple neighbors. They asked where I was doing and I replied with, "Just going to my house." They told me that they have to over to drink my homebrew "Right now!". They had a 12 of St. Pauly Girl and a 12 of Hoegaarden in the passenger side floor and I noticed it and said, "You already have beer." Their reply was, "We want some real beer."

That felt nice!

Like others....I don't think I've made it. But I have had 2 instances that made me realize that I'm ok at this.

#1 was at a small gathering (not quite a party) and handed out a 12 pack of my Copper Ale complete with some pretty decent looking labels and whatnot. A couple of people asked where I got it so they could get some. Upon learning it was homebrew they all agreed I could sell it if I wanted to. That made me feel pretty cool.

#2 was at after a club meeting where I had one of my beers judged. 2 of the judges scored it pretty high (for me). Mid to high 30's if I remember correctly. The 3rd scored it very low. Like a 15 or something like that. It was at that moment where I realized that I don't really give a crap what some judge or anybody else thinks about my beer. I like it, end of story. Why spend my time trying to conform to what someone else thinks is good and in the process compromise my own tastes? It's not worth it.

I've had three moments when I thougth I was doing something right. The first was after getting score sheets back from the first two BJCP-sanctioned competitions I entered. I got the sheets back from both within the same week and they wre both fairly positive.

Second time, just recently when a professional craft brewer told me and some other local homebrewers that our beers were good and worth paying for. The third was...

springer said:

when friends and family request that you brew a patch for a party or wedding. And they will pay for all the ingredients.

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Bingo. Just happened this weekend. Was offered payment for the cost of ingredients in exchange for brewing a five gallon batch for a birthday.

Hate to tell yall... people always prefer FREE beer.

I cloned an old Stone beer and gave it to their old head brewer. He not only said it was perfect (and not to me, my knowledge was third-hand at this point) but next time I saw him he said we should brew together sometime.

That, and the owner of my local bar loaning me his B3 1550 were both good indicators of how far I've come in my two years as a brewer.

I guess I felt like I was a real brewer when I brewed a batch without any recipie and it came out perfect.

I selected all of the ingredients based on how I thought they would influence the final product. After three weeks in the bottle, I poured one at room temp into a glass and handed it to a beer snob buddy of mine to taste. He said it was perfect at room temp and proceeded to drink it like he hadn't had a beer in ages.

I quickly realized that I was still a noob brewer when the reality hit me that I had not logged the ingredients and will never be able to reproduce that batch.

When a member of this forum told me that my Red Baron Bock was the best beer he ever had.

when my neighbor started knocking on my door to hang out in the garage and shoot the breeze 5feet from the keezer

There was quite a gap between the time I said to myself…”damn, I make pretty good beer…” and the time I started medaling in competitions and people started asking me to brew for events.

Accolades and awards for brewing BJCP styles for competitions

Plus

Being asked repeatedly to brew up BMC for family and neighborhood events…and killing the kegs.

That’s when I knew I could brew.

When I first started selling it out of the trunk of my mom's car...

I've only been brewing about 8 months, but I think the "made it" moment for me was when three separate people (on three separate occasions), who know I don't bottle, asked if I would come to their house and set up a single tap system so they could have my beer on tap. Of course all associated costs, including my time, would be on them.

I liked that.

Well I think for me it was when SWMBO was telling some people we did not know at a BBQ this weekend that her and her friends are spoiled because of my HB's

Still waiting for that "made it moment"...

Mine was placing in my first competition after a year and a half of brewing. I entered the AHA eastern region competition and now, I am heading off to the finals!!!

Of course it is great just being able to make beer that I (and friends) enjoy drinking!

Taking a medal in the first comp i've ever entered, and there were 19 entries in that category.

I'll have to get back to you on this one....

While I agree with Pol about not blindly trusting what people say to you about your free beer...

When a friend was sampling 4 different beers I'd brought to a party, he said "You know, I was humoring you when you first started brewing, but these are better than any of the beers I buy", and I know he only buys from the micros here in Portland. He proceeded to offer to pay my costs to commission 10 gallons for a party he is hosting for some colleagues.

A week later, I dropped 2 kegs off at another friends house for an all day event. When I came back late in the evening, he said people didn't believe it was homebrew.

While I really enjoy my beers, I probably won't really feel like I've made it until I enter some competitions. I've not entered any yet because I'm really enjoying this phase of brewing, tweaking my recipes and process, learning about flavors and mechanics. When I start feeling the need for more of a challenge, I'll start entering competitions.

Probably #1 so far is a friend of my BILs who tasted our amber ale and offered to buy the ingredients for a 15 gallon batch and a 15 gallon plastic conical fermenter for 10 gallons of beer. His wife thought they should buy two fermenters!

Other than that, we have had two wedding parties ask us to brew for them this summer, and several people offer to buy batches. One of my partners MIL said it was the best beer she had ever had and would buy some from every batch we make (not sure if she doesn't realize how much we brew or is an alcoholic).

When my mother started asking me for my beer by the case.

For me, it was when I got to brew a 12 barrel batch at Widmer Brewing in Portland. My IPA won the Collaborator "Big Hoppy" competition, around 2001. And by winning that, it means you get to go and brew your beer on their equipment and have it released to local pubs.

They allow you to do as much or as little of the actual work as you want. I went there and told the brewer I wanted to do absolutely everything. Didn't know his equipment, so he showed me what to do. But I did all of the work including climbing into the mash tun afterwards and cleaning it out.

So, 24 kegs were released in the Portland area. And at the Widmer pub itself in the first 24 hours they blew 3 kegs. So 372 pints of my beer were sold in one pub in one day, which made me proud as hell.

But the moment that made me feel that, yeah, I'd really made it, was when I sat down at the bar there and ordered my own beer. That was great. It was called Hop Nation.

The Pol said:

Hate to tell yall... people always prefer FREE beer.

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Who said anything about free? I get the 20-30$ for the ingredients then its about the same cost as a 1/6 keg of commercial beers . But they would rather have my beer.

When people are requesting you to brew for their special occasions and are asking where they should get the supplies, what, and how much they should get.

i realized it on my second and third batches when 6 buddies came over and we polished off two kegs and i woke up on the floor. I could not stomach enough bud to get to that point.

i wasn't winning any awards, but i figured, 'hell, I'm good enough'.

When your buddies invite you over for a poker game last minute and tell you to bring your beer. He called me last night and the conversation went something like this:
him- "Hey, I forgot to tell you that we're having a poker game friday night."
me- "Oh yeah? I might be able to make it for a round or two. What's the buy-in?"
him- "Um, bring a 6'er of your latest batch and I'll cover you."
me- "How far will a half case take me??"
him- "You bring a half case and you'll never have to worry about a buy-in again."
me- "Can I get that in writing??"

I don't consider that I've made it at all as a brewer yet. However, I was very pleased recently to find that in a side by side comparison (Not really a comparison, I was just drinking everything around me at the time) I preferred my flat 3 week hydro sample to a can of Boddington's The Boddy was not my choice, SWMBO bought it for me, bless her.