Hi everyone! Another noob from the ATX here. Let me tell you my story.
Well, I'd say back in '98 a friend of mine started brewing his own beer. He kinda explained to me how it worked, etc. and I think I even witnessed him boiling some wort. At the time, I was not a beer knurd or anything like that. I can't even remember what kind of beer I was drinking back then, if much at all. I said cool, and a little seed might have been planted.
Maybe a year or so after that I decided to buy a home brew kit for pops, since he was pretty much retired and didn't do much, except drink beer (if you can call mickeys beer). We all chipped in and got him one from AHS for father's day I believe.
Well, over 10 years later the kit had not been touched, but I knew it was still out in the garage under a lot of rubble. The tub of malt extract is still in the freezer. How, I don't know. Anyways, in the past couple of years, a new friend of mine started brewing beer and every so often at get togethers he would bring some bottles of his beer (he actually picked bottles out of the trash at city parks, and brought them home to wash, probably ok but come on).
I would try some of the beer and it was not bad. At this point, I still was relatively a noob when it came to beer. I liked it, but just got whatever when we drank. Somehow, I started drinking better beer, mostly ales, and started appreciating the taste.
Recently, I also started going down to my parents house to hang out with my dad and drink some beer and play chess. Hanging out with said home brewer lately, I had been exposed to a variety of pale ales that we drank one night, just to taste the differences. My favorite was Drifter. So, when I would go down to pops to play him at chess, I would bring Drifter and some Real Ale Fireman's 4. He was still drinking his mickeys at this point, probably because it was cheap, but now his palate was expanding, as was mine.
Anywho, I kept coming down to play chess and drink good beer, and a neighborhood friend would also join us to watch. The subject of the home brew kit that was never used kept coming up, and I said ok we're gonna do this. The next saturday we all went to AHS and got a Fireman's 4 clone to brew, extract style.
Every night after that, it has been nothing but home brewing research on the net, reading articles, these forums, youtube videos, getting The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing and How to Brew books, listening to basicbrewing.com podcasts all day in my car, etc, you get the idea. I seem to really get into things that I'm interested in.
Well, a week before our planned brew day, my mom informed me that a guy up the street brewed his own brew and offered to show us his gear, etc. I thought was pretty cool, so we head up there and he had a custom built three tiered gravity system, with the counterflow, conicals and everything. I was still not completely sure on how everything worked, as he had an all grain setup, with at least 20 bins of grain all over his garage. I was even more inspired to learn.
So, the next day or so I order a temp controller for our spare fridge and do even more research. By the end of the week, our fermenter fridge is ready to go and we brew. Everything went great, this sunday we bottle that beer. But last week, we began a Full Sail clone! The day before, we watched guy up the street do some all grain brews!! So, we have two carboys in the fridge right now, and I should be receiving my two keg micromatic regulator in the mail any day now! I am building my MLT soon, cooler style, need a grain mill, and a couple other things. Time to get the pipeline going!! When should I worry about the beer belly?
Chris
Well, I'd say back in '98 a friend of mine started brewing his own beer. He kinda explained to me how it worked, etc. and I think I even witnessed him boiling some wort. At the time, I was not a beer knurd or anything like that. I can't even remember what kind of beer I was drinking back then, if much at all. I said cool, and a little seed might have been planted.
Maybe a year or so after that I decided to buy a home brew kit for pops, since he was pretty much retired and didn't do much, except drink beer (if you can call mickeys beer). We all chipped in and got him one from AHS for father's day I believe.
Well, over 10 years later the kit had not been touched, but I knew it was still out in the garage under a lot of rubble. The tub of malt extract is still in the freezer. How, I don't know. Anyways, in the past couple of years, a new friend of mine started brewing beer and every so often at get togethers he would bring some bottles of his beer (he actually picked bottles out of the trash at city parks, and brought them home to wash, probably ok but come on).
I would try some of the beer and it was not bad. At this point, I still was relatively a noob when it came to beer. I liked it, but just got whatever when we drank. Somehow, I started drinking better beer, mostly ales, and started appreciating the taste.
Recently, I also started going down to my parents house to hang out with my dad and drink some beer and play chess. Hanging out with said home brewer lately, I had been exposed to a variety of pale ales that we drank one night, just to taste the differences. My favorite was Drifter. So, when I would go down to pops to play him at chess, I would bring Drifter and some Real Ale Fireman's 4. He was still drinking his mickeys at this point, probably because it was cheap, but now his palate was expanding, as was mine.
Anywho, I kept coming down to play chess and drink good beer, and a neighborhood friend would also join us to watch. The subject of the home brew kit that was never used kept coming up, and I said ok we're gonna do this. The next saturday we all went to AHS and got a Fireman's 4 clone to brew, extract style.
Every night after that, it has been nothing but home brewing research on the net, reading articles, these forums, youtube videos, getting The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing and How to Brew books, listening to basicbrewing.com podcasts all day in my car, etc, you get the idea. I seem to really get into things that I'm interested in.
Well, a week before our planned brew day, my mom informed me that a guy up the street brewed his own brew and offered to show us his gear, etc. I thought was pretty cool, so we head up there and he had a custom built three tiered gravity system, with the counterflow, conicals and everything. I was still not completely sure on how everything worked, as he had an all grain setup, with at least 20 bins of grain all over his garage. I was even more inspired to learn.
So, the next day or so I order a temp controller for our spare fridge and do even more research. By the end of the week, our fermenter fridge is ready to go and we brew. Everything went great, this sunday we bottle that beer. But last week, we began a Full Sail clone! The day before, we watched guy up the street do some all grain brews!! So, we have two carboys in the fridge right now, and I should be receiving my two keg micromatic regulator in the mail any day now! I am building my MLT soon, cooler style, need a grain mill, and a couple other things. Time to get the pipeline going!! When should I worry about the beer belly?
Chris
I am currently trying to get my Keezer build done. Where abouts you at in the ATX?
