So how long have you been brewing?

[Silver_Is_Money]

I made my first wine sometime right after they made it legal to do so in 1978. Tasted awful.

 

[devils4ever]

I started brewing in the mid to late 80's. Only extract then. I stopped for a while while raising kids. Restarted with all grain and have been busy ever since.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

A buddy that my father-in-law (Scott) worked with bought a no boil Cooper's kit and told him about it. That got Scott intrigued and right before my birthday in 2009 (I think...) he said he was going to check out a brew store in San Antonio. I rode along, we bought a starter equipment kit and a Belgian something extract kit and the rest is history! We got pretty drunk and screwed up just about everything we could've screwed up on that beer. Scott almost went ass over fermenter carrying the bucket back to his place, hence Droppin' the Bucket Brewing. We thought that beer was awesome. Tried a bottle a few months later and tasted like nanners! We lived in BFE TX Hill country so I moved to AG pretty quickly and Scott wasn't far behind. We both make pretty damn good beer these days! I live in CO now so we always bring a few brews to share when we get together. Slainte!

 

[dsaavedra]

2013 I was in my senior year of college and on a field trip carpooling with some classmates. The one driving was taking the class as part of his doctorate program and anyway we somehow got talking about weekend plans and he said he was going to brew some beer. I thought huh... that's pretty cool. So I asked him about it a little and he said he has been doing it for over 20 years and all this. I thought hey I like beer and I like projects and making stuff, why don't I make beer? This was probably in October so that Christmas I asked everyone I knew to get me start-up homebrewing stuff and I brewed my first extract batch before the New Year. So I have been brewing for going on 4 years this winter.

Edit: fun fact I started working as a contractor for this particular classmate after I graduated from college. Then I moved on to another job where we frequently consult with him. So I still get to see him often and swap beers with him. It's cool.

 

[jturman35]

I started brewing up on my 41st Birthday which was Aug 27, 2017. About to keg my first beer! BB Red Ale extract kit. Cheers!

 

[Jimbodaman]

All grain since 2012. Had a friend who bought an all grain starter kit, complete with HLT . Surprisingly our HopSlam clone turned out drinkable even with me sticking my hand in the chilled wort and sucking on a tube to get the siphon started . I thought fly sparging was the only way to make beer for at least a year. I think we made every mistake you could but once the basic rules of sanitation were understood everything came out pretty darn good.
p.s. Don't use 3lbs of chocolate malt in a 5 gallon batch for a "pronounced chocolate flavor", turns out like motor oil.

 

[ba-brewer]

lets call it 8 years, 4 or 5 years of extract in the 80s, about a 25 year break then 4 years of all grain.

I join this forum because almost every time I googled something beer related the most useful information was found here.

 

[mashinary]

I started in early 2004. I had just moved to from San Diego. I was whining to my roommate that there were no West Coast IPA's to be found. So we drove to the LHBS and picked up a Wee Heavy kit for some reason.

 

[MaryB]

1981 with the cheesy prehopped extract kits. By 1982 a friend and myself split the cost of an all grain system and we started brewing a BBL at a time to keep 2 large families(we were cousins) in beer. We had rented a cafe that closed down, installed TV's and had multi family football parties, holiday gatherings etc because we had a commercial kitchen and 2 banquet rooms plus the party room both families used at the same time. By the mid to late 80's everyone had started to move to far away and I had a 90 mile round trip to go brew on weekends after work so I sold my half to him.

I kept brewing on and off, mostly extract kits, until I retired and decided to go back to all grain. not sure how many batches later now, over 100 since I got back into it with a 3 tier all grain system. Doing 10 gallon batches most of the time now too!

And I am building out my own micro brewery/outdoor kitchen in a shed off my deck. I already have friends wanting to learn to brew and I figure I can rent space and recover the costs in a year or two!

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I first brewed back in the 90's. I did extract only and brewed about a dozen batches before my son was born and just didn't have time. I stopped a lot of hobbies then: sailing, brewing, golf, etc. My beers back then turned out pretty good. I enjoyed drinking them and friends/family who had it liked it. I had requests for more.

Then in 2013 I had a hip replaced and my co-workers gave me a list of things to do while I was out (6 weeks). One was brew beer, so I got a Mr. Beer kit. It was awful.

Then, Dec of '16, I got a "brew day" from my wife as a gift. Spend a day at a brewery brewing a beer of my choosing with the head brewer. In talking with him, he had a nice collection of home brewing gear that he wasn't using anymore, so I got pretty much a full all grain brewing setup, including kegs, carboys, burner, kettle, cooler MLT, immersion chiller and all the other essentials for a couple hundred bucks.

Brewed my first all grain batch in March. It was awesome and I've been hooked ever since. I spend at least a couple hours a day reading about brewing, techniques, tips, problems and their solution, etc every day.

 

[mlafnitzegger]

My first exposure to home brew was in the early 80's. My older brother tried brewing beer and my mom was like "if you can make, you can drink it'. She figured it would be sooo bad and have barely any alcohol that she need not worry. She was right. It was god awful. My brother didn't drink most of it. He just left the bottles in a cool dry place. Of course my friends and I being young had no way of getting beer. So we drank all of his. Terrible terrible terrible.
I have been brewing since 2007. Started with a Mr Beer and quickly moved to AG. I still use his glass carboys made in the 60's. Brew at least 2 5gallon batches a month since 2010.