Home brew, the beginning
We’ve decided to get our hands dirty. If we truly want to better understand beer, we can’t just talk to people who make it — we need to make it ourselves. Thus, yesterday afternoon, we set up our homebrewing station and put the first batch in the fermenter.
We decided to start small and went with a kit we purchased from Homebrewers Outpost & Mail Order Company. Nothing flashy, just a simple blonde ale. Our thinking is to start with a kit or two to get the basics down and build some confidence. Then, we’ll slowly build on our skills, moving toward brewing from scratch and being able to predict and influence the end product through different ingredients and techniques. But for now… we just need to know how to brew beer.
Down the road, we have big plans. Suffice it to say for now that we’re going to be planting five varieties of hops this Spring. We don’t expect a useable crop until next year at the earliest so we’ll get the basics down while we wait for the vines to mature.
We’ll post progress updates on this blog — successes and failures — so stay tuned.
