Decribe Your Homebrewing Journey

[mat_890]

Ya ya I know it's not the most original idea ever but i would like to know how you started, progressed, learned, and enjoined the fine art of home brewing. Anyone care to share? Don't spare a detail


Ok i will start. I originally decided that i was spending too much money to get drunk so i figured "hey I will make my own beer" So i went off to a home brew store and told them i needed the cheapest setup possible. They for some off reason told me that beer made your ENTIRE house smell bad and told me to make wine. So i did. I also realized soon after I'm a ****ty winemaker.

Then one day i decided i would just open all the windows and make a batch of beer and to my surprise it's smell was localized to 3-4 feet from the fermentation vessel and it actually smelled pretty good. Here I am now making more beer then i could ever drink (thank god for friends) and posting on HBT.

 

[thataintchicken]

I was sharing a house with 4 others in Portland. I did the cooking, shopping and bartending. We had a makeshift bar in the basement and it was a fun place to party for all of our friends. Homebrewed applepie ale, homebrewed stouts and a session Mild were the favorites.

I started brewing in college, it was fun and novel at the time.
I gave up for a short time, but eventually started brewing 2 or 3 times a year for special events and gift giving. Last year, I decided to put more effort into the hobby... and Here I am.

Logged 15 brew days since last year at this time. Not too bad.:rockin:

 

[NicotineRush]

Almost 20 years ago, I started Sebastian Brewers Supply here in Vero Beach. After a number of years brewing and selling supplies, someone made me an offer for the business and I sold. Many of the Micro/Craft brewers here in the Orlando/Mid Florida region got their start buying supplies to homebrew from me.

I haven't brewed in about 15 years. Looking forward to starting again. Boy have things changed! The sophistication level has increased dramatically and the availability of some awesome equipment is staggering, not to mention the prices!!

I should be receiving all my equipment early next week. Went all out and spent about 1k! Can't wait to get started again.

Enjoying a Dogfish IPA,
Tom

 

[flyboy]

I was home watching Food Network on the TV and I saw a article on some show (I don't remember what one) about Mr. Beer. I jokingly said "Hey, kids. You can get that for me for Father's day" and they did. I brewed two batched and decided that I could do MUCH better and went down to one of two brew stores in Mesa, Az. No prices on the shelves and not help at all. When I told them my kids got me a Mr. Beer kit for Father's Day they told me to throw it away ( forget that a**h**e. My kids got me it ) and I needed to start over with about $300 worth of equipment. Found Brewers Connection on University in Tempe and fell in love. Told them I had a Mr. Beer and they were like "Hey, cool. Here's what you do next." Got me a fermented and a simple recipe for under $50. Brewed a 5 gal. batch of Hefe and the rest is history. I still have my Mr. Beer for sample batches or for cider.

 

[StoutFan]

My first experience was watching dad brew something that smelled good in the garage. After finding out what he was doing, and a lot of listening, I learned about yeast, malt, hops, lager vs. ale, and the whole lot. Helped him countless times, from brewing to bottling, till I got to that "I'm a teenager and I'm smarter than you" stage. After a couple years(about 5), Budweiser got old, and decided to see what dad was brewing. He said he wasn't going to brew this batch, I was. After that, I was hooked. After a total loss of equipment in a moving accident, a Mr. Beer kit, and a nice birthday full of new brewing equipment, I'm back in shape and working on crafting the next Gold Medal brew.

 

[Malticulous]

Me and a friend mail ordered a starter kit back in '94. It came with papa's book and I read it. We did three can+kilos together, the last one with all malt. I was disappointed because I knew I could do much better. Life went on. I got married. He took the stuff. I still have that book. I helped him brew once after that but I never did see a finished beer.

Last year I decided to piece together a setup. I started to doing extract/steeping grains. I got more stuff and did partials. Then I got even more things. Now I can do 10 gallon all grain batches.

I learned a lot form anything I could find on the net and always did my own thing with it. Now I have a growing list of my own recipes. Everyone that drinks my beer likes it (as long as I give them the right ones.) Some of them even want to learn how to brew from me and I probably soon will teach them.

Anyway, thanks to everyone here and on the many other boards on the net for helping me.

 

[GuitarBob]

Someone bought me a Mr. Beer kit.

 

[histo320]

I just thought of it one day at work. Looked into it, saw the startup fees aren't all that much to do simple recipes. Bought a kit, rsearched how to make a beer properly because the book doesn't explain all of it, made an IPA that went over really well. Then made a few more beers (see below), and voila!, I'm on my 9th, and I haven't made a disappointing beer yet. At this time I am slowly accumulating up more materials so that I don't spend all at once.

 

[llazy_llama]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

 

[Yooper]

I've always liked good beer, but rarely have any available unless I travel. It seemed too hard to do on my own, so a few years ago, I bought a "Beer Machine 2000". It's kind of like Mr. Beer with a co2 dispenser. That was only ok so I put it aside.

One of my teammates skated into me during a hockey game and broke my leg badly. It took 18 months to heal, so I was laid up for a really long time. That person was a winemaker, so I said that the least they could do was tell me how to make wine. They did, but I sooned learned that wine is a long term proposition. Like, I'm now drinking those wines finally! I found out beer was faster, and I had all the winemaking stuff, so I started making beer. I did ok at it, and enjoyed it.

One day, I had a really dumb question about my rubber grommet falling into the bucket and freaked out. I googled "homebrew forum" and found this place. Since then, I've made about 260 batches of beer and wine. I've learned so much, but I still have a long way to go- so I stick around.

 

[HSM]

The road to "homebrew" was just along the path of survival as far as I'm concerned.

I come from a long lineage of farmers and growing the food you eat is simply survival. No one has ever called that a "hobby" yet.

So you can buy food at a store.. if you grow it or butcher it is it now a "hobby". Don't think so. I can skin a buck, and run a trot-line. Make my own wine, cheese, beer and hootch. It's not a hobby.




My road to "hombrew" began when I realized that there must be Beer in the Haus!

 

[blakey971]

Excellent thread.

My girlfriend lives with a couple hippie dudes, and one of them was really into brewing.
I sat around while they were brewing a couple times and finally I was sick of being on the sidelines. Tasted their beers and they were OK.

I spent a couple hundred bucks on equipment and made a couple of batches with one of them.

Now me and him are ridiculously obsessed with brewing and try to fit a brew day in whenever.

I used to be a "musician," but now it's about 50/50 with brewing!

 

[Bob]

I started because I grew up in a good beer wasteland. I never knew it until I joined the Army and was introduced to excellent UK ales, German lagers and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. But when I got out and went home, there was nothing.

Nothing, I tell you. Hell, you couldn't even get Yuengling Lager!

So I went to the library, which had a copy of NCJOHB. I joined AHA, got my copies of Zymurgy, and mail-ordered some equipment. Joined some USEnet newsgroups (remember those? ) about homebrewing. Went from extract-only to extract/steep to partial mash to all grain.

Fast-forward through more than a few years in the micro/pub-brewery business making wort, and here I am: Back into homebrewing (still consulting the pros) and loving every second of it.



Bob

 

[Tonedef131]

I never really drank before I was 21, I only have had a couple lite beers and that has only been since I got into great beer. My first real experience with beer was a case of Sam Adams Boston Lager that was on sale at the grocery store...I figured it might be nice to keep in the fridge and get to know beer. We hit it right off, I have always been a big fan of bread and all fermented products, so it was no surprise. Well for the next couple years I tried every beer I could get my hands on...when I couldn't find anything else I hadn't tried I was ready to make my own. Cooking has been a long time passion for me and I knew brewing would just be an extension of that for me.

Well a couple months went by and I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Then one of my beer loving buddies called me up and told me his folks had gotten him a starter kit from the LHBS and asked if I wanted to split a batch with him. Since then he has went on to brew at 3 different breweries in the Midwest. I stuck with homebrew, but have brewed hundreds and hundreds of gallons, won awards, became a BJCP judge and I am currently chugging my way through brewing every style there is. I love this hobby and its limitless challenges.

 

[Baldy_Beer_Brewery]

I think I started because I was bored. One night sitting around googling up random crap, I was somehow reminded of some bagged up batch kit we got the mother-in-law's husband for Christmas one year. Not finding anything of that sort online, I came across Mr. Beer. After googling some more I found the Ale Pale type kits and decided that was what I wanted.

I also have a kegerator in my den and as good beer around here is not too economical I decided that I could brew my own and have something good on tap while saving money. I knew this was something I wanted to do.

But as I googled more, I found the forums at realbeer.com and started reading there. There was so much talk of infections, stuck sparges, DMS, off flavors, oxidation and every other home brew bogeyman I wasn't sure I wanted to pull the trigger. So I held off.

During all this googling, I checked to see if there was a place to buy home brew equipment in Tulsa as I get there quite often. This came up with High Gravity's website. I attended one of their home brew workshops and saw for myself that making beer from extract was as easy as following any recipe. I learned that a big pot, the right ingredients, something to ferment in, some bottles and crowns and the ability to understand basic instructions were all I needed.

I bought an equipment kit and two recipe kits from High Gravity that day and dove in. I did a couple more extract batches after that, a partial mash and then went all grain. I've loved every minute of it and every part of it. A while back I started growing growing hops this year I started ranching yeast. I half think that if I had the room to do it, I'd grow barley and start malting it. This is the best hobby there is.

 

[2nd Street Brewery]

Started about 6-7 years ago when my wife and daughter bought me a brewing kit for Christmas. I went on making a couple of kits a year for 2 years until I decided to get a little more serious about the hobby. I found this place and the rest is history. Within a year I had hooked up with a bunch of good folks at the 1st Yankee Ingenuity in Vermont at Glib's for my first AG and now have a keg set up and brew right around the legal limit(give or take a gal or 2)

 

[Homercidal]

About 1990 or so I was talking with a friend's dad, who made wine. I was very curious about the process but didn't like wine. He suggested brewing beer. I'd never thought of it before, but I went out and got a carboy and a cheap lager kit and made some (probably) bad beer. It was ok for me though, I was still young and dumb.

I've brewed on and off since then. I wrote 1998 in the cover of my Joy of Homebrewing book.

Last year I sort of got back into it, and somehow found this site. Well, these guys jump started my passion. Having this kind of information available makes me eager to try to improve my process all the time.

I've probably only done about 20 batches total, but I'm learning all the time and each one gets easier and I get more knowledgeable. Now I can't drink fast enough to keep up with my brewing. (I'd never even heard of a Mr. Beer until I came here...)