Why do I brew?
An interesting question it is...
All the reasons given by others, were very good reasons.
The reasons 'I brew my own' are ...
All the reasons given above, and also basically:
The reason I learned how to cook food.
Control over my own life, to not be a slave!
I remember when I was a kid, I asked Mom how to cook.
She said:
Men don't cook food,
they get married and have their wives cook for them.
Oh Mom, your cooking is so good I want to learn how you do it, I told her.
When actually I wanted to learn how to cook food,
so I didn't end up with a ***** like her,
but if I told her that... she wouldn't show me how to cook.
It was one of my first tactical lies.
But it worked.
I am single and a good cook.
Life is good, now to the subject at hand:
One homebrew of mine costs about .40 cents.
But it is half again as strong as store bought beer, 25 cents ???
I don't have to get in a truck with tags, inspection sticker, insurance, expensive gas and all and drive to the beer store, dodging cops,
idiots and accidents all the way there and all the way back.
In order to pay a dollar + tax, for a beer.
I just walk in to my brewery, {the former pantry,}
and 'select' or just, 'get me' an ale.
I have 200 full, green glass bottles on the shelves.
6Lb Hammerbier, -7, -8 Lb Hammerbier.
Different batches different flavors and amounts of alcohol.
I gives me control over my life.
It gives me Power!!!
A friend of a friend was over bumming my homebrew.
'Mikey' was lots younger than me and hadhad a severe head injury too.
I was trying to inspire him and show him the value of brewing your own buzzzz...
I took him into my brewery, {the former pantry}
We looked up at the shelves filled with rows and rows of full,
clean, green glass bottles with my special brews in them.
A beautiful and inspiring sight it was.
{And thats why I bottle rather than keg ya'll}
I told Mikey about the wino who came up to two friends as they were opening the door to a rooming house, 'room', they had rented just to have a place to smoke pot in back in the 60's. Here the old wino came with his broom as he helped out around the old house to help with his rent.
James was saying hurry, hurry open the door, while Steve was fumbling with the keys. The wino came up to them and opened his mouth and with his scratchy old wino voice said:
"Cherish your youth boys, cherish your youth."
Whereupon the old wino started coughing and hacking and grabbing at his chest. He wheezed and hacked and staggered around and collapsed in the hall as Steve got the old door open,
and they went in and locked the door.
The wino was gone when they came out.
I have always remembered the old wino's admonition.
And said you can learn something from anybody.
Then I was telling Mikey about 'wealth'.
Some men view 'wealth' as owning lots of stuff.
Two or three beautiful women with the biggest tits.
The fastest car and the biggest house.
Others view wealth as land.
Thousands of acres of grassland, mountains and lakes,
owning a ranch is owning a piece of the earth,
a place to spend your life improving,
to plant grasses and trees, heal gullys and erosion,
build fences, to make it more fertile and raise animals.
To leave it better than it was when you found it.
Its your land and "land is the only thing that lasts".
But Mikey, the poor old wino would go for a bottle of wine.
That was wealth to him.
All that property and those women are just a big hassle.
I looked up at my shelves filled with the aforedescribed rows and rows of clean, green glass bottles, filled with my special precious homebrew.
I took a deep breath and held up my hands.
Mikey dude, this...
This is wealth.
J. Winters Knife
' Sandymay got two coon last night ya'll '
' Thats wealth too '
