I like beer.
Twenty plus years ago when great beer wasn't quite yet readily available in the U.S., I knew my taste in beer was somewhat different than most of my friends. Don't get me wrong, I was all about playing quarters and shotgunning crap beer with my friends but I was slowly starting to realize there was a difference in what I wanted to drink at parties and what I wanted to drink at home.
My first sips of Pete's Wicked Ale, Samuel Adams Boston Lager and eventually Sierra Nevada Bigfoot lead me to believe there was better tasting beers than what everyone else was drinking if you just took the time to seek them out.
Then. Somewhere. Somebody told me I could brew my own beer. Who it was, I don't remember. I never brewed with whomever the person was that lead me onto this path but before long I was reading all I could about brewing and finally found a store that sold the ingredients.
I'd brew in apartment kitchens, backyards and at work, on days we were closed- I worked in restaurants.
It was all extract brewing. The beers were interesting and most likely flawed.
But I made them, and I LIKED them!
Fast forward to today.
Great beer isn't necessarily something you have to make at home anymore. Fantastic American brewers have become much more common and easy to find (Thank Goodness!). I'd dare say that some of the best beers brewed throughout all of history are probably being brewed today.
I'm fortunate enough to have worked for an American Craft Brewery for going on eight years now. What was once an interesting hobby has grown into a passion and a profession.
I still brew occasionally. I fell out of it for a couple years but so many people around me are either professional or active home brewers that my interest in brewing was kept alive.
Last year I decided to throw myself back into home brewing beer on a regular basis.
It's when you start to delve into something as deep as I was trying, that you start to realize your shortcomings. I know much more about beer now than I ever did back in college- perhaps that's why I'm so increasingly critical of my own beers. I know what I want them to taste like. Some turn out good, some don't.
That's when it hit me; I want to brew like many of my friends and industry acquaintances- I'll ask THEM!
My goal is to brew one beer per month with both industry and home brew mainstays.
I hope to learn all I can and dial in my processes. I hope you discover this blog and learn a bit about brewing beer and also a thing or two about the personalities that make up what has to be one of the greatest industries in the U.S.
