Sharing Nostalgia with the Beginners: What Was The First Beer Your Brewed?

[bracconiere]

Whenever something like this happens, ferment it anyway and tell people it's Belgian.

i should report that for being racsist... lol

 

[Brooothru]

For those who are familiar with him, here's a post regarding John Palmer's first brew. I always get a chuckle out of this post. Demonstrates that every journey must begin with the first step.

http://hbd.org/hbd/archive/1192.html#1192-6
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“TAPED” episodes of the series’BeerHunter’?

What is this “TAPED” device? Will it help me brew better beer, just like in 1993? Hold on a minute. AOL is telling me that I’ve got ‘Mail’? All I wanna do is brew!

 

[bracconiere]

What is this “TAPED” device?

it's what the kewl kids call a 32GB USB flash drive, and right clicking a streamed video and clicking 'save as' to it......lol

 

[JAReeves]

My wine-making uncle bought a beer kit for my dad; which never got used (then), and then a Mr. Beer for me, which did-in 1998. It was a pale ale, and it was ok, but whenever I tried to order more kits, inventory was out, so I quit brewing and focused on culinary school and cooking. 2017, I put dad's brew stuff to use and haven't looked back.

 

[KyBeer]

1993. Listermann's Red Ale kit. They stopped making my goto beer, "Red Wolf", and I wanted to find a replacement. Never thought I would still be brewing but I still enjoy a good homebrew.

 

[Derp]

I had to look it up in BeerSmith: MoreBeer ESB, brewed on May 25th, 2010. I've since brewed 113 batches of much better beer.

 

[Shenanigans]

Have to admit I only had time to read the first page until now, but great thread.
I just have time to tell my story and will read the other posts later

For me it was a can of extract and a packet of yeast.
It was early 1995 in Ireland; my father got me into it as he already had the equipment for making wine.
At that time in Ireland the price of alcoholic drinks was quite high compared to the average amount of disposable income.
Mainly due to high taxes.

Kits were comparably very cheap because there was 0% alcohol content until you had brewed with it.
40 British-sized pints for about the price of two or three 6 packs of Harp/Guinness/Smithwick's/Bulmers.

It was my first year as a student, so I have to admit my main motivation for starting with brewing was to get drunk for less money.
There was no such thing as a home brew store in Ireland back then so we bought our kits from a so-called health food store in a nearby city.
I can't remember the brand but they had 3 types - Ale, Lager and Cider - probably all with the same yeast
I brewed them all at the same temperature anyway (ambient).
Everything sterilized with bleach and probably not rinsed enough.
They tasted very bad but did what I wanted, got me drunk for cheap and time wasn't such as valuable commodity as a teen as it is in my 40s now.
I remember I filled them into large Guinness bottles and added a spoon of sugar into each bottle.
Carbonation was like Cola, big bubbles and no head.

I did that for a few years, maybe 10 batches, then I moved away from Ireland and didn't have my father's equipment or the space of my parents' farmhouse to continue with brewing. Plus the price of beer in the countries I lived in afterwards didn't make it so attractive to brew anymore.

Almost 20 years later in 2013 I started back up with brewing but this time with a totally different motivation.
I live in the countryside in Germany and the choice of beer other than Weizen, Pils, Alt or some other type of Helles is a bit limited.
Don't get me wrong they are very solid beers but sometimes I want something a bit different or don't want to pay over the odds for an over-priced and not so fresh imported craft beer.
So I got into all-grain brewing and started brewing my own craft beer style beers.

 

[Upstate12866]

Mine was a Nut Brown Ale, a Northern Brewer extract kit. I was super stressed on brew day, never having brewed before. But everything went quite well and I made drinkable beer. So began the journey.

That was my first go, as well. I was lucky enough to have a friend show me the ropes on a brew day back in 2013 or so, and some time later I mustered the courage to try on my own. I made the Nut Brown kit and ended up bringing some to my wedding just by coincidence. So I always remember when I started brewing on my own, I started whatever year it was I got married.

 

[Hopalong]

1971 ... baking aisle of local grocery ... can of Blue Ribbon malt, 5# bag of sugar and pack of bread yeast. Fermented in a pickle crock with towel over top. Bottled in pint Pepsi returnables with caps and capper from a farm auction. I was probably making Belgian-style beers before I even knew there were Belgians.

Authentic Prohibition beer!! Me too, but I was the mule for my grandfather back in the early 60's. To the market for three cans of PBR then to Steg brewery for a quart of yeast and a bag of hops.

 

[palmtrees]

When I was in grad school in 2011, a few acquaintances let me tag along to one of their brew days and showed me the ropes. My first solo brew was a Dead Guy clone because I thought I'd had one at a party recently and loved it. Upon trying the finished product, I realized I must have actually grabbed an IPA at that party because it turned out I really hated Dead Guy. Luckily I kept going and eventually made some beer I liked!