The Beginning...

I like beer. Actually, I love beer. Probably only loses out to the wife and son. Though I might drop down on the wife's list with this new adventure and the fact that I'd rank beer above the dog.

I'm not a beer snob, but most of the stuff I buy costs more than five bucks a six pack and is not made by one of the big three -- Miller, Coors or Bud. But I still believe that there is nothing like an ice cold (as the Rockies?) Coors Light after mowing the lawn. After all you need to replenish the water that you lost working up a sweat. Then again, I don't mow the lawn much, so I don't end up drinking Coors Light much.

A few years ago I was given a Mr. Beer kit as a gift. Never had thought much about brewing my own beer but I tried it. It was kind of a simplistic operation --- sanitize equipment, boil some water, dump it all in a plastic keg and wait. It was an ale and drinkable. Drank the product and retired the plastic keg to the basement. A few other Mr. Beer kits arrived under the Christmas tree and found a home in the basement.

Then a friend got into more involved home brewing --- the glass carboys, messing up the kitchen, plastic bins, etc. Intriguing but seemed like a lot of work. Then I tried his beer and was pleasantly surprised. Same friend ended up giving me a more advanced ingredient kit, which I tucked away with Mr. Beer and never bought the equipment to make it. Until this weekend....

Something, maybe the beginning of football season, maybe the number of breweries that Rachael and I visited this summer, I had an urge to make that and more beer this fall/winter. So I took a quick trip to Kennebec Home Brew in Farmingdale, talked to the proprietor, who was a great guy and passionate about homebrewing and full of info, and invested in the next stage equipment.

So hopefully tomorrow, I will begin brewing my own beer. Sunday evening, just for kicks, I dusted off and then sanitized the old Mr. Beer and started an Irish Stout kit. It's fermenting now in the dinning room. But tomorrow, the real adventure will begin.

For no other reason then my own personal journal, I will hopefully be chronicling the process and many future adventures on this blog. I suspect a readership of one --- but maybe I will get vain like the rest of the blogosphere and believe that people really give a shit what I have to say and post beer reviews, brewery tour reports and other things here that no one in their right mind will care about.