Lets get to know each other!

The Pub
1

I really like the sense of community we all get from forums like this. I recognize a lot of people here from the NB board, but there are a bunch of people I don’t know and it would be cool for everyone to introduce and share a little about  yourself. Don’t feel obligated though!  ::slight_smile:

I’m Travis. 25 y/o. I’ve been brewing for about 2 years now. I moved to all grain this past spring (12 AG to date) and don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner! Love to brew, and like most other people here, its just about all I think about. I live in Kansas City and work for a pharmaceutical company as a microbiologist while my wife is in medical school at Kansas University. I like long leisurely strolls on the beach, and my favorite color is blue (especially for mash tuns!)  ;D

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My name is Matt.  I’m 29 and write/admin software/databases for an engineering company.
I have a wife and a couple of youngsters.

I’ve been brewing for just over two years and have been all grain for just over a year.  I just got a freezer and temp switch that I need to hook up so I can lager!

I’m trying to learn as much as I can about all the different styles.

My favorite color is green but my cooler is blue.

3

Names Darin, been brewing for about 7 years now. Been making wine for about 10. I brew all grain in my garage. It’s nothing fancy, just your typical cooler mashing. I manage the website for my local homebrewclub, The Forest City Brewers (http://forestcitybrewers.org).

I too have a blue mashtun. I find blue mash tuns work best for mashing.

4

My name is Steve, but I go by Stephen, Stevo, Stevorino, or hey you!  I am 42 years old, married, with one assistant brewer, a son age 7 ( don’t worry…he only helps dump the grain into my Barley Crusher…I don’t make him do the dough in or run the boil…yet ).

I’ve been brewing for a few years, but only seriously for about the last 3.  Started as an extract brewer with a kit my wife bought me at the Vermont Brewers Festival, but have been doing All Grain for the last 3 years.  I batch sparge following the wisdom of Denny ( sucking up here  :wink: ).  I recently acquired a new chest freezer and set it up as a fermentation chamber.  What a difference!

Hopefully my next big acquisition will be a kegging system because I am growing really tired of bottling.

I post mainly on The Brewing Network forum, but also on Beer Advocate, Morebeer ( sometimes ), and NB once or twice.  I will behave myself and try to remember which forum I’m posting on so as not to incur the wrath of Denny.  ;D

My mash tun is also Blue…Blue is the new Black.

5

My name is Jeff

43 married with a 7 yo son and 4 yo daughter.
We have started to do a lot of camping and will continue to until the kids lose interest.
I hunt and do some offshore fishing (mostly for Bluefin tuna with occasional Marlin trips as well)

I brewed for a while in the early 90’s and stopped when we built the house.

With the greatly appreciated help/prodding of a friend who said “I’m brewing tomorrow, bring a carboy” a few years back it has been guns blazing since. Didnt realize how much I missed this hobby.

I generally do single infusion mashes but do decoctions for most German styles. My wife has helped by mashing in for me a few times, once was a triple infusion Hefeweizen… so I have that going for me.

Temps are generally controlled by a swamp cooler except during camping season/vacations when I will plug in a spare keezer.

4 taps in a converted fridge and generally one other ready in the lagering keezer.

Everything except the mill in my system was built by me (and the mill was even modified to make it gear drive) and leans toward the Cheap and Easy method (copyright Denny Conn)

We have 5 varieties of hops with good harvests from three (Cascades, Mt Hood, Fuggles) the Northern Brewers and Northdowns need to be move to another location.

RED COOLER!

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Sorry, I’m not changing my avatar. :smiley:

BTW My favorite color is orange as in McLaren which became more like yellow in the early 70’s M8D’s, my favorite shade of “orange”.
edit: some info actually related to this board:
I use keggles w/ 12.5 to 13 gal batch size. Free standing BK and HLT. The tuns are 152 and 70 qt and sometimes both.

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I prefer brewing beer to walks on a beach, sunset or otherwise. Now if there was a brewery on the beach…

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I bet your efficiency is terrible with that thing!  :wink:

8

I’m an old fart, I guess.  I’ll be 55 in December, married since '83.  Two kids, 15 and 16.

Brewing for five or six years, making wine for 20.  My mashtun is a keg inside a wooden box, and I’m setting up to do 30 gallon batches.  I just invested in a 3 barrel fermenter.

I’ve done a bunch of SMASH recipes, my favorite being Maris Otter with Centennial.

I manage a OPE department at a Do-It Best Hardware store in southwest Michigan.

Glad to be here.

9

Real name is…Robert  ;D.

Hittin the big 3-0 in about a month. Been brewing for about 3 years now. All-grain 5 and 10 gallon batches.

Married with a 3 yr and 6 month old. Wife and I are big baseball fans. Season tix to the Rangers. I work for a city govt, solving problems and such.

10

Kit brewed for about 10 years - my housemate/best bud had the gear and I got the bug.  Got my one gear when I got married.
Had been talking about all-grain grewing for a while and my wife bought me a couple books last xmas (I think she now regrets that) and did my first ag batch last April with number 9 coming soon.

38, married to a nurse, we have two kids (daughter is 6, son is 1).  I live in Nova Scotia, Canada and work for the provincial government.  I do GIS (Geographic Information Systems), which is basically a blend of mapping and databases.

When I’m not at work, taxi-ing the daughter to various activities, looking after/playing with my kids and/or dog, brewing or thinking about brewing, I like to spend my time outside, wither working on the yard or taking the family for a hike/walk.  Maritime weather can really put a damper on that though.

11

Ok, i’ll bite  :smiley:

My name is Chris Bowen,

I am married for 23 years to a great wife, and have 3 great  children , 22 , 16 , and 10 . I am a financial planner for the past 16 years and specialize in small business’s of 2-15 employees , I am a master broker in 11 different states selling employee and executive benefit packages, so that’s boring .

I have a couple of different serious hobbies, but I will talk about the brewing one here .
In 2007 I won the gold medal at the GABF ProAm , which helped to add some credibility to my amature brewing career, it was a fantastic thrill,  and one I will always cherrish. I am also a BJCP judge , and waiting for a local exam site to take my Cicerone exam, I did the beer server one so far .
I started doing re-eacting of a 1800’s brewer for my local historical society about two years ago, after doing a fair amount of research, I am currently  a guest curator for a year long museum exibit on brewing history , that includes brewing old recipes from the period of 1790 to 1830 , re-enactments on period equipment and giving lectures on historical brewing practices.

In addition , I am working on my latest project for next summer 2010 , where I am making a documentary film about the Northwest Passage in the arctic region of Canada, a modern day adventure film that has me and a couple of friends, riding motorcycles into the arctic to brew the famous Allsopp’s Arctic ale , a three week adventure of extreme brewing, history, and adventure motorcycling.

Other than that, I enjoying mostly brewing for friends and learning from fellow homebrewers , I belong to a very strong and active  local club “the Lehigh Valley Homebrewers”, where several great brewers have taught me much of what I know .

12

My turn…

I am 44, married with two boys, 11 and 14.

I am a software engineer, and own my own small software company, specializing in GPS/GIS and digital cameras.

I’ve been homebrewing for 4 years now. I am a member of the KROC homebrew club in North Denver and a BJCP judge.

I use 3 15gal kettles for all-grain brewing with two natural gas fired burners.

In my “beer office”, I have a fermentation fridge which can hold two 6.5 gal carboys, and a storage/serving fridge which can hold 15 cornies. I built a wooden collar for the fridge, and added 5 serving taps.

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I’m an older fart…57, 58 on Valentine’s Day.  Been married damn near 30 years, have a 32 year old son in NY and 2 grandkids, 1 and 4.  I’ve been brewing about 12 years.  I’m a member of the AHA Governing Committee, and in real life I’m an audio engineer at a large performing arts facility.  I love cooking and baking bread.  If I ever have any spare time, I play the ukulele.  Currently working on learning Pinball Wizard on the uke.

14

Let’s see… got one Admin, might as well get the other one in…

Drew Beechum - 35 - engaged - no kids, except 2 furry four legged canines and 2 furry four legged cats (one of which outweighs the canines). I live and brew in Pasadena, CA. Originally from Florida, went to school in Cambridge, MA. This means at some point I’m going to have to move somewhere into Denny territory (or north of there) just to finish pegging the four corners of the country.

I work as a senior software engineer for a major entertainment company and have had all sorts of jobs around here. Currently, I write and design systems to help ferret out people misbehaving in our online products. Its an odd job seeing what people like to chat about on these intertubes.

Brewing wise - I brew 10 gallon batches in a 26 gallon pot. (I hate boilovers I guess) and use a blue cooler for my mashing. Sadly, the braid is coming out this week to be replaced by an old fashioned copper manifold.  I mostly ferment in two 10 gallon corny kegs and have ~25 kegs waiting to receive brew. My favorite styles are Mild, Saison and DIPA. (go figure that range). I guess I like extremes. I’d be hard pressed not to experiment with something goofy.

I am a member and past president of America’s Oldest Homebrew Club - The Maltose Falcons (out of Woodland Hills, CA). I’m currently the “Grand Hydrometer” (aka Beer Education dude or Mr. Know-it-all) and the Webmeister.

I was a one day Jeopardy! Champion last year (2008) and got to talk about homebrewing with Alex. The next day I talked about skydiving and then promptly lost. Must be the reason I don’t throw myself from airplanes anymore!

I’m also a freelance writer published in Zymurgy, the Celebrator and a monthly column in BeerAdvocate the Magazine.

Earlier this year a book I wrote was published by Adams Media - The Everything Homebrewing Book.

Like Denny, I’m a member of the Governing Committee which means I’m all ears for ways to improve the AHA experience for the membership.Unlike Denny, I still have my hearing intact!

A fool and the ground are soon reunited!

15

What???

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I SAID I STILL HAVE MY HEARING IN… Oh never mind! :slight_smile:

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UPDATED 5/7/10:

My name is Matt and I’m 31 years old, married, and have one child.  I’m an attorney working on behalf of a state agency.

I’ve been brewing since November 2005.  I brewed three or four extract batches w/grain and then moved to partial mashing.  Starting at about batch ten, I went all-grain.  I just brewed batch 71 last weekend.  I became interested in craft beer when I turned 21 – back in 2000 – and was working as a server at Boscos Brew Pub in Nashville, TN.  I remember one of the Nashville homebrew clubs meeting there regularly and thinking to myself, “these guys are nuts…you must have to invest in thousands of dollars worth of equipment to make decent beer at home!”  Obviously, I was wrong!

Prior to going to law school, I was a working guitar player in Nashville.  I did this for about eight years, recording and touring pretty regularly, but not with anyone particularly notable.  After so many years of making peanuts and having to work odd jobs to support my music habit, I decided to go back to school.  Other than having to deal with such an awful job market right now, going back to school was the best thing I ever did, aside from marrying my wonderful wife.   :wink:  I still play guitar quite a bit.  In fact, I just recorded some tracks for my brothers’ (two of 'em) forthcoming album a few weeks ago.

18

Instantly, the Cheers episode when Cliff went on Jeopardy pops into my head…you didn’t answer final Jeopardy with “3 people who haven’t been in my kitchen” did you?

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That was my plan if I didn’t know the answer! (But I knew the answers)

Hell, the first day the Final Jeopardy category popped up as Science Fiction. It was really, really, really hard for me not to bet it all and truly pull a Cliffy.

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My name is Corky Stewart, I live in Carlsbad NM.  I started brewing with 1 can of pre-hopped extract, 2 pounds of corn sugar and the crappy little yeast pack on top of the extract can back in 1993.  I did 3 of those batches and then went to extract and steeped grains for 2 years.  Then I started all grain with a ZapPap, and in 2000 a friend built my current system (more or less) so I could do 10 gallon all grain batches.  
For what it’s worth I’ll be 53 soon, been married to the same woman for 29 years and have a 23 year old daughter who loves my homebrew and 25 year old son who doesn’t drink beer except a sour pumpkin beer a friend gave me.

Here’s a link to some of my brewing gear.