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Author Topic: How and when did you get started with homebrew  (Read 8522 times)

Offline Stevie

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #60 on: November 12, 2014, 11:31:40 am »
It certainly has become an expansive hobby. Close to half my garage now

+1.  Half of mine. Ever expansive.


Yep and yep. The last chore of the day is to make room for my lady's car in our 1 car garage. At the end of the day, that's the worst chore there is.

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #61 on: November 12, 2014, 11:38:00 am »
It certainly has become an expansive hobby. Close to half my garage now

+1.  Half of mine. Ever expansive.


Yep and yep. The last chore of the day is to make room for my lady's car in our 1 car garage. At the end of the day, that's the worst chore there is.

I've gotten pretty clever over the years at creative storage/stacking in the garage. I buy equipment without the space looking much bigger.  :D

Edit -  She's pretty accepting though. I'm lucky.
Jon H.

Offline Wort-H.O.G.

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #62 on: November 12, 2014, 11:42:20 am »
It certainly has become an expansive hobby. Close to half my garage now

+1.  Half of mine. Ever expansive.



Yep and yep. The last chore of the day is to make room for my lady's car in our 1 car garage. At the end of the day, that's the worst chore there is.

I've gotten pretty clever over the years at creative storage/stacking in the garage. I buy equipment without the space looking much bigger.  :D

Edit -  She's pretty accepting though. I'm lucky.

my brewhaus is 1200 square feet and its basically all mine. pool table, full bar, 65" LED, my Harley's winter home, and my dog house when needed...just a few steps out the back door of the main house  8)

     
« Last Edit: November 12, 2014, 11:59:56 am by wort-h.o.g. »
Ken- Chagrin Falls, OH
CPT, U.S.Army
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Harveys-Brewhaus/405092862905115

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Science_of_Mashing

Serving:        In Process:
Vienna IPA          O'Fest
Dort
Mead                 
Cider                         
Ger'merican Blonde
Amber Ale
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Ger Pils
O'Fest

Offline factory

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #63 on: November 12, 2014, 01:02:56 pm »
I was at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2003-4.  We had a Christmas party and one of my classmates brought homebrew.  He had a Christmas Ale that he had designed the recipe for himself.  I was hooked on the idea of making my own beer.  I didn't have the time to get started on my own homebrewing adventure until 2006, when I wandered into my LBHS and walked out with a basic starter kit and an Irish Red extract kit with some steeping grains.  The rest, as they say, is History.  I made the move to AG about 2 years ago, and now have a shiney Blichmann Top-Tier Brew stand and a DIY RIMS controller. 

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #64 on: November 12, 2014, 02:33:05 pm »
I was at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2003-4. 

Man, that's a tough tour of duty.   :)

Offline factory

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #65 on: November 13, 2014, 06:22:20 am »
I was at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2003-4. 

Man, that's a tough tour of duty.   :)

I told myself that every day.  haha.  Someone had to do it though. ;)

Offline garc_mall

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #66 on: November 13, 2014, 10:05:56 am »
I was at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2003-4. 

Man, that's a tough tour of duty.   :)

I told myself that every day.  haha.  Someone had to do it though. ;)

I was at DLI from 04-06, which was also tough sledding...

Offline Herminator

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #67 on: November 13, 2014, 10:20:25 am »
Actually just passed my 2 year brewversary. First batch was....well, not very good. Ever since then I have learned a lot.  Special thank you to all those here for the help.
Hermen D.
Muerte Brewing

Offline pete b

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #68 on: November 13, 2014, 11:55:58 am »
It certainly has become an expansive hobby. Close to half my garage now

+1.  Half of mine. Ever expansive.
The first time I went to my girlfriend's house there was a 32 gallon bucket with 25 gallons of mead fermenting right in the middle of the kitchen floor. So no worries there.

Yep and yep. The last chore of the day is to make room for my lady's car in our 1 car garage. At the end of the day, that's the worst chore there is.

I've gotten pretty clever over the years at creative storage/stacking in the garage. I buy equipment without the space looking much bigger.  :D

Edit -  She's pretty accepting though. I'm lucky.
Don't let the bastards cheer you up.

Offline boulderbrewer

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #69 on: November 13, 2014, 05:04:40 pm »
My first adventure in homebrew was when I was 13 and spent the whole day with my dad driving all over Milwaukee looking for Pabst Blue Ribbon Malt, he made the beer in a 30 gallon trash can( a couple cans of the malt and a bunch of sugar water and yeast, yum!). My older brother and I were in charge of the bottling, we wound up with about 8 cases of "beer". It was not good for the most obvious reasons (sanitation).

Fast forward another 13 years, my wife bought me a beer making kit and Charlie P's book as Christmas presents at the local cheese shop back in '94. I did extracts until 2000 and then I went all-grain. Only after I realized I could boil my wort in more than pot. I started a homebrew club in 2007.  In 2012 I started a brewery. I guess next on the agenda is to sell out to one of the big breweries, retire and get back to homebrewing in a warmer climate.

Offline Wort-H.O.G.

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #70 on: November 13, 2014, 05:49:54 pm »
My first adventure in homebrew was when I was 13 and spent the whole day with my dad driving all over Milwaukee looking for Pabst Blue Ribbon Malt, he made the beer in a 30 gallon trash can( a couple cans of the malt and a bunch of sugar water and yeast, yum!). My older brother and I were in charge of the bottling, we wound up with about 8 cases of "beer". It was not good for the most obvious reasons (sanitation).

Fast forward another 13 years, my wife bought me a beer making kit and Charlie P's book as Christmas presents at the local cheese shop back in '94. I did extracts until 2000 and then I went all-grain. Only after I realized I could boil my wort in more than pot. I started a homebrew club in 2007.  In 2012 I started a brewery. I guess next on the agenda is to sell out to one of the big breweries, retire and get back to homebrewing in a warmer climate.

i run into more people who's beer experiences started with PBR (mine included). i still buy a case now and then out of nostalgia.
Ken- Chagrin Falls, OH
CPT, U.S.Army
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Harveys-Brewhaus/405092862905115

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_Science_of_Mashing

Serving:        In Process:
Vienna IPA          O'Fest
Dort
Mead                 
Cider                         
Ger'merican Blonde
Amber Ale
Next:
Ger Pils
O'Fest

Offline turkishrock

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #71 on: November 13, 2014, 06:26:46 pm »
I was doing so good at lurking, but this thread is too good to pass up.

A friend took me to a hardware store, where I bought my first kit. It was March, 1978, and the kit consisted of one 3.3 pound can of Blue Ribbon Hopped Light Malt Extract. A packet of "Beer Yeast" was taped to the top of the can, and two pages of instructions were taped to the side. You had to supply 2 1/2 pounds of Domino sugar on your own.

It was the best beer I had ever made, up 'til then. But I knew I could do better.

My second brew (April, '78) was an Imperial Stout! (Like the one I had drunk in England. Still remember the hangover.) Three cans of Blue Ribbon Hopped Dark Malt Extract, one packet of "Beer Yeast", and no extra sugar needed.

Now, that was some five or six years before Charlie's book came out. You had to be resourceful in those days to learn how to brew better beer. My brews have improved a bit over the years, and my current brewery (Turkish Rock) takes up half of the garage AND half of the basement. This weekend I'm teaching a dozen or so members of the local club (UNYHA) how to brew a lambic.
Doug

Offline corkybstewart

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #72 on: November 14, 2014, 10:21:22 pm »
I started saving bottles in the late 80's with the idea that one day I would brew beer and need them.  In 1992 we moved to a new much bigger house, my wife decided if I was going to haul crates of empty bottles I should start learning to fill them.  She bought me my first kit 5 gallon setup and it was off to the races from there.

Dang, 12 years of bottles would be a barn full for me.
Let me clarify.  On pay day I would buy a six pack, or a couple of Samuel Smith bottles, as long as they had pry off lids.  Those were days of either relative poverty or money flowing everywhere, never anything in between and steady, but I could usually find a couple of dollars to buy a decent beer.  Between paydays I drank crappy canned beer, so the accumulation was slow.
Life is wonderful in sunny White Signal New Mexico

Offline klickitat jim

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Re: How and when did you get started with homebrew
« Reply #73 on: November 15, 2014, 03:01:48 am »
It's all good. I was really just imaging 12 years of my beer bottles. I think it would scare me if I could.