For me it was 1994 and I was living in Germany. Someone bought me the mr. Beer kit- plastic barrel to ferment and plastic bottles for finished product. I remember mixing my cans of LME and pitching the dry yeast. I waited anxiously for many weeks to sample the first bottle. It was carbonated, it was malty…other than that It barely resembled beer. So since I was living in Germany, I decided it was best to give up mr. Beer and drink some of the best beers in the world throughout Europe (wise choice). So glad a few years ago I found some good people in the forums to get me kick started in the all grain brewing. It’s been such a fun and rewarding hobby that will be a part of me for the rest of my life.
For me it goes back to about 94 or 95 as well. I was fresh out of high school… I mean college, yeah college cause I was totally 21. And I was a geek. I decided I HAD to make mead. So I found the cat’s Meow on line and spent too much money on ingredients and turned out a succession of undrinkable swill. I gave up for 10 years or so until I married a woman whose uncle was a bee keeper. I finally managed to make a decent batch of mead and started in on beer not to long after that. Fast forward another 2 or 3 years and I finally made a really good batch of beer. I was hooked at that point and haven’t looked back since.
I had a fraternity brother who brewed back in 90-91ish, who became my room mate, but never brewed while we lived together. Fast forward 23 years and my girlfriend got tired of listening to me moan about poor beer selection, and really enjoyed most of what I put in front of her. We went on a beer tour here in Cincinnati almost 2 years ago that made a stop at one of our LHBS’s. She saw all the equipment and pushed me into it. I swear I had nothing to do with the decision, lol. Love her to death for that push.
thats a great tour in cinci by the way. loved the old lagering cellars and walking in the footsteps of the mobsters and some of hollywoods wannabe gangstas.
For me, it started back in in 1988 in St. Petersburg, Fl. My apartment was close to a homebrew shop and it look like an interesting thing to do. I brewed a lot of amber ales because back then, about the only thing available was Bud, Miller, Coors, etc. This was my way of escaping that. Hallelujah!
Thanks, those are all great ours too but the one I was talking about was a bus tour. Got on the bus at Christian Moerlein Lager House, then on to: Mt. Carmel, 50 West, Rock Bottom, Rivertown and Listermann’s Brewing supplies and Brewery. We had a blast, nothing like 6 charter buses carting 360 rabid beer fans(or as many drunk beer drinkers) all over town in the name of “DRINK LOCAL BEER!”
I started back in late '92/early '93 after my Dad got me a Munton’s ESB ‘kit’ as a present. Back then a kit consisted of 2 cans of hopped Munton’s LME and a packet of ‘Beer Yeast’ taped to one of the cans. So I went to a liquor store and paid them the deposit fee on a couple cases of empty longneck returnables, brewed the beer and quickly became the envy of every friend I had - I saw a lot of 5 gallon kegs burned through on a Friday before I rethought my brewing strategies ! So I brewed maybe another extract batch or two and then switched to extract with steeped grains. Made the jump to all grain maybe a year later thanks to Charlie P and his Zapap lauter tun. Consulted Cat’s Meow (and other even lesser ones too) along the way to figure out putting recipes together, or sometimes what not to do ;). After sometimes mixed results fly sparging for years I found Dennybrew and made the jump to batch sparging, which along with finally submitting to learn better pH control , gave me the consistency across styles I wanted. Time has been a blur of work and beer planning/thinking since !
I was in the Army stationed in Savannah GA in '92. I was an extract brewer on the kitchen stove. I made some pretty good beer back then. I was reassigned to Italy so stopped and picked it back up 20 yrs later Aug '13 after AL made homebrewing legal in May.
Born in 63. In 65 the feds came to our house on a tip that Dad was making brandy. Outlandish rumor, they didn’t find anything. But after that he made beer wine and something he called honey wine. I remember having fermentors in my bedroom from early on.
I got busy as an adult and didn’t take up the hobby untill a couple years ago. My system is a world of difference from what Dad used. Many things they didnt know then.
Great story.
Jan '13. Amusingly enough I was convinced I would save $ vs. Buying commercial brew. Fast forward a year and a half and I’m setting up an electric brewery in my basement… not sure I’ve saved money but it’s been fun!
After I got my Bachlor’s degree in 2010, I stopped in a liquor store and bought the starter kit from better brewing, and got an extract hefe. Made a pretty good beer. Went all grain a year or so later, and am still a batch sparger! I have always been a dyi kind of person, and there were flavors I could envision that I wasn’t getting in commercial beer.
Well I hope the powers that be on this forum pin this so the stories can keep coming. It’s interesting to see where and when it all started.
Man you are all geezers. [emoji6]
Started in 2006 and really got going in 2009 when I moved to a house with a great yard with a 10x40 covered patio. Went bananas when I started kegging.
My first kit was Dogbolter Bitter, brought to me by a good friend from London in January, 1990.
It’s pretty interesting to look back at the notes I made back then. Actually pretty good detail.
I had a Dogbolter Bitter at a home brew shop a couple years ago and it triggered a memory of my first brew.
I too spent time in Europe in '89-90 playing music and fell in love with the beer. When I came back to the states I visited one of my cousins in St. Louis who was into home brewing and he got me started. Old geezer alert… “Back in my day we only had dry yeast and Cooper’s malt extract and we liked it!!”
Gramma made beer during prohibition to support the 5 kids after grandpa was permanently injured in a work accident. The local sheriff turned a blind eye because he understood her dilemma and her brew was darn good. So I’m told it’s in my blood. A trip to the UK with my Brit husband in '73 found me packing a couple cans of Boots Chemists beer extract. I loved English beers and I wanted some back home. After a lot of false starts and wretched results I gave up. More trips to England, and the availability locally of beer making supplies, got me going again in the late '80’s. That was the same time I found the Homebrew Digest, AHA and the Minnesota Home Brewers Assoc. Now I had the info and mentors to make some really good beer. (Gramma was proud) I had to give up brewing from '95 until '07. Then we retired and moved to Oregon and I dusted off the keggles and memories and jumped back in…deep.
My wife bought me a homebrew kit for my birthday back in 2000. Brewed extract, then extract with grains, going to all-grain after about 3 years. Had a period of about 6 years where I didn’t brew–4 years working on my doctorate, then another 2 years when I took charge of a department needing serious work.
Back to brewing again and finding I still have a lot to learn. And enjoying the hell out of it.
For that you have to get a little back story on why I even live in Alabama. Because it was the main reason I started brewing.
I moved to Alabama from PA in '93 after my dad transferred down here working for the Army. I bounced around in PA several months in my old job at the York Daily Record/York Dispatch scraping by on a 22K/year graphics job and living in a run down apartment when my dad convinced me that there were better paying jobs in Huntsville.
I moved and was struck by the terrible beer selection. Sam Adams was about the most creative beer you could buy. There was a 6% abv cap on beer (which was silly since you could buy 100% grain alcohol and even 17% wine in the grocery stores).
My mom got me a basic extract kit as a Christmas gift in 95 and I was hooked. It was just a can of John Bull and the yeast under the lid. The beer was terrible even though I convinced myself and others it was great. There was a 10 page booklet that describe “English Ales and Continental Lagers” that I must have read 20 times trying satiate my thirst for knowledge. I soon found Charlie P. and was off to the races.
I was in beer “no-mans land”, an outlaw brewer since homebrewing was technically illegal, and knew nothing about the BJCP or anything until about 2004 or so when I discovered the MoreBeer forum and my eyes were suddenly wide open and even though I was making pretty good beer I started making great beer by interacting with all the great folks in the “Brewniverse” (I just coined that term, right now).
I’m very proud to say that I was at the catalyst of brewing change in Alabama and one of the original people who worked to bring down the stupidly restrictive beer laws, and even more so that I am at the vanguard of the craft brewing movement in Alabama as one of the first craft breweries to open in the state (when we formed our LLC there was only 2 breweries in the state of Alabama, now there is probably 30 or more)
Another great story- keep em coming folks. At the very least it’s an opportunity to reflect on why we love what we do.