I just started brewing early last year after a friends of mine turned me onto it (1 had done it for a while and one was new). It seems good to have varying levels of skill amongst your closest friends. And even better in a brew club huh? I in turn turned my brother on to it who just finished culinary school so of course he was all over it. It seems like a lot of people, like me, never really think "hey I could make my own beer". lol I find that funny.
Anyway, so I quickly decided that AG was the direction to go after a few extract batches. Besides, all the equipment and the process I liked so it was an excuse to buy more stuff which just meets with my wife's eye rolling of how guy hobbies are always "just need one more thing".
She's right. Next thing you know I've got another fridge with a temp controller, top cut kegs, Home Depot mash tun and a spinning sparge arm! Yikes! 6 months ago I didn't know what the hell half of that meant. And now I don't know what the other half means, but getting there slowly. My styles of choice are darker varieties, Brown Ales, Porters, Stouts, even Ambers. I’m not a high hop fan at all, but that's just me. I know it seems to be all the rage with American micros, but meh. I do like many Belgians however as long as they are not way out there with the % ABV. High alcohol beers I have not grown accustom to as of yet.
I've just bottle my first AG batch which was an S. English Brown Ale. Nothing special but I wanted to start simple and with something I knew how it should taste while I'm learning this All Grain thing. So we'll see. I have the Bruery batch also ready to bottle now too, just need to find the time. I'll be going to the Cal. Homebrew Festival in May so I look forward to meeting everyone that I already haven't. I'll be sure to bring the Brown Ale for fellow passing by campers if it's drinkable.
I look forward to learning for you pros. Next steps for me are kegging (need CO2!) and fermentation starters (just got a flask the other day) also perfecting my MacGyver’d pseudo 3 tier system made out of metal storage shelving.
Thanks for reading!
Cheers,
Chris / Kaisho99
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. Ladera is really nice, almost too cute, neat and perfect in some regards. The one thing I do hate though is we (RSM) have Mello-Roos AND 2 association fees. C'mon wth people. Pisses me off. But my daughters school is phenomenal, I couldn't be more happy there and that's what's important I guess. So there's pros and cons of course. And there really aren't any bad area except people that butt up against huge roads like Antonio. That's gotta suck for noise.