How did you get hooked on brewing?

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BilltownBandit

BilltownBandit

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I started brewing after taking a class in college about the history of beer. We brewed a small batch in the process and I was instantly addicted as if it was crack.
Just curious as to what got some of you guys started and what keeps you brewing!

Brew On:rockin:
 
We were watching videos one evening,& got to talking about how I used to make wine,but didn't like 1 or 2 years of waiting for them to be ready. So we thought to see if youtube had videos of how beer is brewed at home nowadays. I couldn't believe how easy it had gotten,from what we saw on craigtube,revolutionary brewer,steeljan & a few more.
WE then ordered the cooper's micro brew fermenter kit from makebeer.net. We now have 2 fermenters,a bottling bucket,bottle tree/vinator,& enough equipment to brew up to 2 6G batches at the same time.
What keeps me going is experimenting with craft beer styles I've learned to like. But my favorite is researching extinct styles from the past. My latest,a Burton ale style,hasn't seen the light of day in some 121 years. It's finishing up right now...:mug:
 
I accidentally made a hard cider in the fridge. I had this bottle of unpasteurized organic cider and I tasted it but it was a bit too sour. I threw some sugar in it and stuck it in the fridge. Something got put in front of it and I found it 3 months later all puffed up from the CO2, delicious and highly alcoholic.
 
I used to talk with a co-worker about getting into brewing, we talked about it for about a year! One day he got a kit and brewed it up. gave me a couple bottles, at that point I knew I wanted to brew myself.

I started looking into the equipment I would need, I had a turkey fryer already so I figured I was on my way, I read that a full boil is a little better than a partial so I took the empty keg in the garage and made a keggle, now that I had a keggle I knew I couldnt put it in an ice bath so I made an IC.

I was looking at recipes on here and saw that most of them were "all-grain" so I looked into that process and discovered all I really needed was a cooler to mash in and I could go all-grain.

Thirty five dollars later I had an igloo cooler and the parts to make a mash tun.

My very first batch was EdWorts Haus pale ale, all grain. Since I already owned a kegerator, I bought a couple kegs and couplers and I was kegging!

Never done an extract batch in my life, and never bottled anything unless I pulled a couple bottles from the tap.
 
My Dad pushed me into it. He's like, "Well, you know so-and-so's son brews. You like spending all this money on crazy craft beers, and tinkering hobbies requiring research and nerdiness, maybe you should brew." Fast forward a few weeks, "When are you gonna start brewing?" On and on. So I decided to do some reading. A bit more reading lead to me saying, "You know it doesn't look that hard..." To which he responded, "So ****ing get start already."

I bought a starter kit (bucket, bottling bucket, capper, etc.) and 2 cans of extract. It fermented in my basement at an ambient 76 degrees. It was terrible. I thought, surely, this can't be why people home brew. More reading, I find out that temperature control is essential, especially living in the southeastern US. So, we hacked up an old mini-fridge, stole the cooling unit, built a box on the bottom of what became my brew bench, layered a few pieces of insulating foam, hijacked a house thermostat to control the temperature, and bought a few partial mash kits from AustinHomebrewSupply.

Those were better. That was what got me "hooked." Being able to see and taste improvement in the finished product. That was a year ago.

Once I was hooked, I couldn't get enough brewing information. I quickly jumped to all grain, which meant there was yet more seemingly endless amounts of information to dig into. Then I started thinking about yeast health. Starters, O2 levels, pitching rates, all that fun stuff. I'm still learning almost daily some new brewing tidbit thanks to this forum.

Now, I've got a kegerator, kegs scattered all over, 6 carboys, 2L flasks, stir plate, mash tuns, pumps, O2 kit, burners, beers all over the house in every fridge, and some ribbons that were awarded to me at the last competition. :D

...he asked for it. :eek:
 
I read The Joy of Homebrewing in college. Brewing was interesting to me, but I never tried. Then one day my cousin brought me a maple porter to taste. At the time, it was one of the finest beers that I had ever tried. When I found out that he made it....I was hooked.
 
Happened slowly for me. As brewpubs started opening up in the town I was living in (Des Moines, IA) I'd find myself in one every now and then, and really enjoying some of the things they had to offer. Being fairly fresh out of college at that point, this was what opened up my eyes and made me realize that the whole "tastes great, less filling" debate was kinda silly, since they were all pretty watery and flavorless. Still remained a pretty dedicated Bud Heavy drinker for awhile, until I discovered that Miller Lite gave me less of a hangover and made that switch.

Fast forward a couple years and a few craft brews started showing up as regular items on the shelves at local stores. Became a fan of a few of Sam Adams's offerings, and several of the Pete's Wicked "insert beer name". Also realized that anything from Leinenkugels is overpriced, artificially flavored swill ("Clorox", "Pine-Sol", and "Vick's Vapo-Rub" are not desirable things for the flavor of your beer to remind you of). Then on a stop at a local liquor store one night with a buddy who was picking up a keg of bud light, I spotted a a six pack of Flying Dog's Doggie Style Pale Ale. Hey, how could I not buy a six pack of that? Even if the beer sucked, the labels on the bottles made it worth picking up.

Oops, big mistake. I became an instant hophead that night.

Of course, I immediately jumped on the beer review sites to find out more about the style and found out there were even things called IPA's, and, can you believe it? DOUBLE IPAs? Holy crap, I had to try these.

Sadly, Iowa at the time had some ****ed up laws on beer and and even liquor stores couldn't sell beer above a certain ABV, and even a regular IPA crossed the line. They could sell Bacardi 151, and the full strength Everclear, but a 7% beer was a big no-no.

I still REALLY wanted to try these beer styles, but a few days of research informed me that I'd need to drive a 12-hour round trip to pick up a 6-pack. What to do, what to do...???

From spending times on beer review sites, I had noticed ads posted from homebrew suppliers.

And I had my answer. The state of Iowa won't let me buy a Double IPA just to try it out? Well **** THEM!, I'll just frickin' make some. (Picture me standing in my front yard flipping a two-handed middle finger as I come to this realization.... One pointed toward the state capitol building downtown, the other aimed at the governor's mansion a few blocks away. :D)

Ordered a "deluxe" starter kit and a couple ingredient kits (one being for a double IPA), and that was that. First batch I made was a simple wheat, based on advice found on a message board back then, and the second batch was a dry hopped Double IPA.

Been hopelessly obsessed with homebrewing ever since.
 
When I turned 21 a number of years ago my friend started to get me into craft beers. After I started to like beer and all the great stuff that is out there I was going to different states to buy new things. I finally started thinking of brewing my own and what went into brewing beer.

I bought a book on brewing and it sat for about 2 years (reading isn't my favorite thing to do). One day I was bored and came across the book so I decided to read it. Later that day I was almost done with the book. I went directly on the Internet and started making purchases. I figured this way I have already invested on a conical fermenter and many other things so I have no excuse.

After my first batch I noticed myself buying more gadgets and reading about brewing all the time. That was a bit over a year ago and over 20+ batches ago. I now have so much brewing gear that it seems crazy but I still want more.
 
I had been talking about trying it out and then my GF got me a kit for Christmas. I waited until about March when my neighbor got me a 15g stainless pot and it's gone downhill from there as far as working on my collection of brewing equipment and trying new recipes lol.

What a great hobby.
 
I started with a kit from Christmas as well. I got the kit and it got stuck in the basement for three years before I found it again. I did some reading and found out that I could still make it if I picked up new yeast and hops....even though the DME wasn't fresh anymore. So upon walking into the LHBS and seeing all of the shiny pots and IC's,etc. I became more and more interested in the hobby (that turned to total obsession). Now its AG, temp. Controllers, desire to keg and make a keezer. All in just a Year!
 
subliminalurge said:
Happened slowly for me. As brewpubs started opening up in the town I was living in (Des Moines, IA) I'd find myself in one every now and then, and really enjoying some of the things they had to offer. Being fairly fresh out of college at that point, this was what opened up my eyes and made me realize that the whole "tastes great, less filling" debate was kinda silly, since they were all pretty watery and flavorless. Still remained a pretty dedicated Bud Heavy drinker for awhile, until I discovered that Miller Lite gave me less of a hangover and made that switch.

Fast forward a couple years and a few craft brews started showing up as regular items on the shelves at local stores. Became a fan of a few of Sam Adams's offerings, and several of the Pete's Wicked "insert beer name". Also realized that anything from Leinenkugels is overpriced, artificially flavored swill ("Clorox", "Pine-Sol", and "Vick's Vapo-Rub" are not desirable things for the flavor of your beer to remind you of). Then on a stop at a local liquor store one night with a buddy who was picking up a keg of bud light, I spotted a a six pack of Flying Dog's Doggie Style Pale Ale. Hey, how could I not buy a six pack of that? Even if the beer sucked, the labels on the bottles made it worth picking up.

Oops, big mistake. I became an instant hophead that night.

Of course, I immediately jumped on the beer review sites to find out more about the style and found out there were even things called IPA's, and, can you believe it? DOUBLE IPAs? Holy crap, I had to try these.

Sadly, Iowa at the time had some ****ed up laws on beer and and even liquor stores couldn't sell beer above a certain ABV, and even a regular IPA crossed the line. They could sell Bacardi 151, and the full strength Everclear, but a 7% beer was a big no-no.

I still REALLY wanted to try these beer styles, but a few days of research informed me that I'd need to drive a 12-hour round trip to pick up a 6-pack. What to do, what to do...???

From spending times on beer review sites, I had noticed ads posted from homebrew suppliers.

And I had my answer. The state of Iowa won't let me buy a Double IPA just to try it out? Well **** THEM!, I'll just frickin' make some. (Picture me standing in my front yard flipping a two-handed middle finger as I come to this realization.... One pointed toward the state capitol building downtown, the other aimed at the governor's mansion a few blocks away. :D)

Ordered a "deluxe" starter kit and a couple ingredient kits (one being for a double IPA), and that was that. First batch I made was a simple wheat, based on advice found on a message board back then, and the second batch was a dry hopped Double IPA.

Been hopelessly obsessed with homebrewing ever since.
Click to expand...

Luckily for me Iowa no longer has such restriction. I am from north central Iowa and go to school at Wartburg College in Waverly, so the first few years before I turned twenty one (i know, underage right?) I was unable to get the IPA's I wanted to try either. Luckily that all changed. Haha, someone must have said something because you can buy higher gravity beer but they limited everclear. Took Iowa a while but we got our stuff strait now lol :D
 
Williams Sonoma had the Brooklyn Brew Shop 1gallon summer wheat kits on sale like 90% off, so it was a total impulse buy- went home and brewed it up that night.

Started reading HBT, and found out all the horrible mistakes I made (the beer ended up being a disaster, really bad but I drank it all anyway), and I knew I couldn't let it go at one bad attempt.

Now I've got a couple of extract brews under my belt (none of them have gone smoothly yet, but the beer has been decent) and I've got one more extract IPA to do before heading over to AG BIAB. I think I'm getting my mistakes covered and my process dialed in, so we'll see how it goes.

It's like working on my car, though: there's always one more part that I need, and about five more tools. I can do everything I need to do with what I have, but I still need more stuff!
 
My brother-in-law claims this was the greatest Christmas present he ever gave. A Navy buddy of his is a long-time homebrewer and he told my brother what to get for a HB kit. The kit cost him around $180 complete, and in return he's gotten about 25 gallons of (increasingly good) beer. Since January I've brewed about 100 gallons, and I think I'll hit about 150-160 before New Years... which means by the end of 2013 he'll be about $50 ahead :)
 
My wife got me a Mr. Beer kit for christmas about 5 years ago. That has turned into a garage full of equipment, trips to the LHBS at least every weekend, extra fridge in the garage, CO2 bottles, empty kegs, and a whole closet dedicated to fermentors and storage. Every time she complains, I reminder her that is was her fault!!!!
 
Gardening. I was growing vegetables and heard that yarrow was a good companion plant. Googled yarrow, realized that it was medicinal. Oh wait, people used to brew beer with it. A nickname for the plant is "field hops?" I wanted to start brewing because I wanted to make a gruit.

My girlfriend and my family pitched in to get me some supplies and an Imperial Pale Ale kit. I did a few extract batches and then went straight for the gruit. It was amazing, but not for everybody. Being able to brew things that aren't available as well as the smells and other sensations while brewing has kept me into it.

That and the satisfaction of drinking a beer that you brewed yourself which is much better than many commercial beers.
:mug:
 
My girlfriend got me a deluxe starter kit from Northern Brewer because I had mentioned it once about a year ago . Lol
 
SWMBO and I were visiting our kids down in Georgia and was introduced to a keezer with a couple of kegs of home brew. Great stuff! After we got back home I started reading, watching videos, buying some gear and jumped in head first to all grain - never tried the extract kits. I bought a NB Irish Red AG kit and it turned out great. Been doing recipes I find online (with a little spin) ever since.

SWMBO and I are headed back down to Georgia for Thanksgiving and I'm going to buy a MT while I'm there and we are going to brew an AG batch ( they have been doing extract kits so far). Kinda interesting how things work out...
 
At a buddy's birthday party a friend and I were talking out of our a**es about how it would be cool to try and homebrew and we could probably" get it for around 200$. The next day I walked into a LHBS and walked out with an "intermediate" kit. I thought that would be ALL I would need to brew.

After my first batch I found this forum...

Since July I have moved from that kit which got me a few batches to 10g All Grain No Chill and just this week KEGGING!
 
BilltownBandit said:
I'm surprised to see how many people jumped strait into AG.
Click to expand...

I started all grain after my third batch. I thought it would be more difficult so that's why I didn't start right away. It's not hard, more time consuming that's about it.
 
My wife took me to Dogfish for the weekend, even met Sam, and I picked up Extreme Brewing. She sent me the Midwest GroupOn a few weeks later and I brewed my first batch a week after that. A day after brewing I drove to my local homebrew store, TapIt HomeBrew Supply, and picked up another bucket and brewed my 2nd batch. But I think what really hooked me was going all grain and making Deathbrewer's SMaSH beer. It was just so simple but so good and everyone really liked it. That is what really hooked me into it.
 
26 years ago, I had just graduated High School, enlisted in the Army, and was stationed just outside of Frankfurt, Germany. I had drank some beer in high school - the typical BMC (and Kingsbury!) - and didn't really care for it. I realized beer was GOOD after trying the local German stuff! Weissen, Double/Triple Bocks, Alt Beir (Mmmmm, Alt Bier!), etc. etc. Then I got out, came back home, and discovered that BMC STILL didn't taste good! (Kingsbury was just about defunct at that point)

So I looked around and found a few beers brewed by a micro brewery in Milwaukee (Sprecher) and, while better than BMC, still wasn't quite right (to me). All their brews, regardless of style, had a particular after taste common to every bottle. Then I found a local gasthaus (for lack of a better term) that would sell me cases of bier imported from Germany. :rockin: This was good, but expensive! Periodically, I would get a case that didn't make the trip very well :( and that was an expensive let down. So I picked up a book from Charlie Papazian, collected up the basic gear and made a couple of batches. They weren't very good, BUT THEY WERE BEER! Then life got in the way, no time to brew and very little time to drink beer.

Fast forward to the last few years. I discovered the New Glarus Brewery - more importantly, I discovered his 'Unplugged' Series... OH,MY! I was in heaven - until I realized that these were one off beers that I'd probably never see again...:( Then early this past spring, there was a dearth of New Glarus specialty beer to be found, I picked up a Howe Sound Brewery, Father John's Winter Ale. Good beer - but, $10/liter?!?

So, I said to my wife, if I get back into brewing my own, I can make WHAT I want WHEN I want it, and probably spend less money* on it! So I resurrected the old pot, picked up a few replacement/new things (including a Blichmann burner), got a Brewer's Best Alt Bier kit and made beer! It doesn't taste quite like I remember Alt bier tasting, but it was my first attempt in a LONG time and it was BEER! :mug:

I just bottled my own version of a Winter Ale - that I built based on recipes collected from here and other sources - and that FG sample tasted GOOD! Best part is that the ingredients, for 5 gallons - and there were a LOT - cost me about 1/2 of what 5gal of the commercial brew would have cost! So now I can have the beer I want, WHEN I want it! :)


*One must admit, that this MAY save me money - in the long term! LoL! I bought the burner, I'm looking at a Blichmann boiler (to do full boils), and after bottling 3 batches of beer, I'm realizing how much of a P.I.T.A dealing with bottles is! The bottling part doesn't bother me (Thanks Revvy!), but storing and cleaning and... The other day, I opened a bottle - or I tried to open a bottle, and the neck snapped right off! :eek: (Loss of 12oz of beer, fortunately, no loss of blood!) So this coming year, I'll be looking into building a Keezer and a kegging set-up, and who knows what else! :D
 
I have no idea. Back around 1990 I started saving pry-off and Grolsch bottles, when my wife asked why I told her that one day I wanted to brew my own beer and I would need bottles. At that time I'd never seen a homebrew, or met anybody who had ever brewed beer so I have no idea where the idea came from. In 1992 we moved into a much larger house and I took the bottles with me. For Christmas that year she bought me a beginner's kit from a guy trying to start a LHBS. Since I was his only customer he lasted about 3 months. 19 years later I'm still brewing on a scale my wife never imagined possible, but then she's always been my biggest supporter.
 
I started brewing because I enjoy a lot of beer and I thought it would be cost effective.


Holy **** was I wrong.
 
BilltownBandit said:
I started brewing after taking a class in college about the history of beer. We brewed a small batch in the process and I was instantly addicted as if it was crack.
Just curious as to what got some of you guys started and what keeps you brewing!

Brew On:rockin:
Click to expand...
A former coworker was talking about his roommate brewing beer. That got me thinking about it. I had already been drinking many different craft brews by that time and initially wanted to get into brewing in order to save money :D

I now know you don't really save money, but I can make whatever craft beer style I want, so that keeps me going.
 
phoenixs4r said:
I started brewing because I enjoy a lot of beer and I thought it would be cost effective.

Holy **** was I wrong.
Click to expand...

Haha, cost effective for simple batches over time but the initial investment can be pricey. I don't even want to know how much money I have invested since I started brewing.
 
I started with a Mr. Beer kit I got for cheap off woot.com. After about 10 batches of Mr Beer, I bought a kit from Northern Brewer. I made a bunch of extract batches that were pretty good, but I got sick of bottling quick. I built a keezer for New Years. At the beginning of this year, I bought an 10gallon cooler, added ballvalve w/ steel braid, and have made a bunch of AG beers this year.
 
I received a brew kit as a Christmas gift and messed with it off and on for about ten years. Then one day I remember standing in the aisle of the beer store saying to myself "Everything here sucks...."
 
Someone handed me the crack pipe disguised as a homebrew. I've been hooked since. Can't seem to break this addiction...not that I want to. :rockin:

beerloaf
 
I think I was hooked before I even brewed. I wanted to brew beer before I started brewing, because I loved the idea of making good beers! Now that I've been brewing for 2 years... nothing has changed. I still love the idea of making good beers!
 
I didn't "get hooked on brewing".... I was fkin' BORN brewin'!

LOL!

Joking.

About 18 years ago a roomate and I grabbed an extract kit and a few pieces of equip on a total whim. It was really even before I was that into craft beer. Beers came out pretty good and since I'm a bit of a foodie and enjoy cooking, brewing was kinda right up my alley.

i got out of it for a few years as I moved twice and have been way too into it for about 5-6 years now and getting ready to open a nano.
 
My wife took me to a BOP (Brew on Premises) for my birthday one year and bought me a Mr. Beer Kit. It's been downhill ever since and she regrets it! :rockin:
 
HBT has certainly inspired me to brew some things I otherwise would never thought to brew. (another thanks revvy!
 
Talked to a couple of buddies who brewed, checked out HB on youtube, bought a starter kit, brewed a batch, bottled it, waited, tasted, LOVED it!!!! I was hooked....
 
My folks were out for a visit one time, and we decided to go to a local brew pub. I was looking at the brewhouse and commented "I wonder how that all works" to my Dad. That Christmas they gave me a standard starter extract kit and I was on my way. That was about 10 years ago, but i didn't really get the bug until I started doing AG about 4 years ago.:mug:
 

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