Brewing Beer: My Story

I had known several people who brewed their own beer before, but never really pictured myself doing it, at least not while I was living in a small apartment. In 2003, a birthday gift from my wife Abby changed all that. The first batches turned out well, and I have been brewing regularly ever since. Since the beginning, I've explored a variety of styles, and even a bit of soda making. Currently, I brew primarily all-grain ale recipes in 5 gallon batches.

Shortly after brewing the first few batches, I got involved with ACEs, the Association of Craftbrew Enthusiasts. ACEs grew out of group of brewers who met at homebrew appreciation nights at Beer, Beer, and More Beer (now known as MoreBeer) in Riverside, and who wanted to get together and share their collective brews at the 2003 Southern California Homebrewers Festival in Temecula. The opportunity to share advice and sample others beers really helped improve my brewing. As far as I know, the group still meets occasionally to share their creations, which cover the whole range of traditional ales from pale to stout and barleywine, and some less traditional brews such as fruit, herb, and chocolate ales, with lagers and meads thrown in for good measure.

Since the start, my brewing setup has been kept relatively simple. I brewed malt extract-based ale recipes for a while, then converted to all grain brewing in 2004. I was under the impression that all grain brewing required an expensive setup, and indeed systems costing several thousand dollars are available, MoreBeer's brewing "sculptures", and Sabco's Brew-Magic. By contrast, I was able to use my current equipment, and only had to spend $4 for a piece of stainless steel braided hose, to use as a filter inside the 10 gallon cooler that functions as the mash tun. Around the same time, I set up my first keg refrigerator. This was a massive brown fridge offered to me from Roger, a fellow brewer in Moreno Valley, California. It easily held four 5-gallon Cornelius kegs, with lots of spare room for bottled beer. This was given away when we moved to Maine, but a new keg freezer took its place within a few weeks. At about the same time, I planted a hop garden from a few small rhizomes. The hot and dry inland Southern California weather was hard on most of the plants, but I harvested enough Cascade hop flowers to dry hop a batch of pale ale.

Moving across the country came with changes. The challenge of keeping a fermenter cool during 105 °F California summer days was replaced by the challenge of finding a warm place for fermenting ale during the winters in Maine. I also learned to plan ahead more, since my "local" homebrewing supply shop in Maine was 40 minutes away, and their hours and inventory were modest compared to the store in California, MoreBeer, one of the largest brewing supply companies in the country. The change in climate from the Inland Empire of Southern California to Maine, and now to Pennsylvania, has its benefits. I look forward to taking advantage of the cooler weather, which should be ideal for brewing lager.