homebrewing

In the words of Chris Brown to Rihanna, 20 years from now when they've rekindled their love (they ARE the modern day Pam and Tommy Lee, after all) "it's been a long time, baby." Indeed, it seems like millenia ago since the last time yours truly has shared his cranial output on Brewdies. And with good reason. Recently, I took a big, long awaited step in my life. No, not an intervention (not saying that won't happen soon); I actually got engaged. The normal reaction is: girls "Awww"; guys "don't do it!".

I've been homebrewing for about a year now, and so far concocted 3 different malt elixers with mixed results. And by "mixed" results I mean horrible, terrible, and meh. So I was pretty excited when my running buddy Paul, a veteran homebrewer, invited me over to his place on Sunday to co-brew a German Helles lager. What sorts of tried and true brewing secrets would be revealed to me? And would I be sober enough to remember any of them by the end of the day?

I brewed my first beer last weekend. I'm pretty proud of myself, and pretty excited to see how it comes out. From what I gather, that's a pretty common sentiment with one's first batch of homebrew, so forgive my girlish giddiness.

Impelled by my friend (and local Brew Ninja) Mark, who's been doing and championing homebrewing as a way to get exactly the kind of beer you want in much more quantity than you really need for a while now, I decided to take his advice and tap into his vast array of brewing knowledge, convincing him to co-author a beer with me.