what elements of your brewing would you want/hope to pass on to descendants?
obviously you can’t force your kid/grandkids to like say pale milds or hazy IPAs if they don’t like them.
but - would you want your kids/grandkids to start homebrewing? to simply know how to homebrew well and perhaps do it on occasion?
if so, would you want them to just buy a system, follow certain guidelines, understandings ?
would you want them to brew a certain type of beer you perceive as being important for you or your family history?
i’m still waiting to see if my offspring will end up being very “into” alcohol at all, several more years hopefully.
if they did i would want them to have a solid understanding as I do of what beer styles may have been some their ancestors would have drank (i’ve got some of the most primo-beer drinking areas of history there tbh, pretty crazy in a way - no belgian though lol), and to understand the basic process.
honestly though it would be a massive relief if they tasted alcohol a bunch and just decided “yeah i dont really like it much”.
I would probably not encourage it myself but that’s just me. Especially so at a much younger age, but I think too much sometimes. LOL I think there are some studies that show that kids who tried alcohol at a young age tend to be more alcohol dependent, and I’m probably a good example. Certainly a functional one, but that’s not a glowing review.
I don’t think I would attempt to pass on anything about Styles other than to show that there are many different ones. I would be far more interested in passing on knowledge about the ingredients, knowledge about the chemistry, about the yeast and water. That’s not to say that I’m an expert in any of those areas, but I think I have enough grasp to offer a lot to someone new.
I would want my kids/grandkids to learn a craft. Work with their hands. Learn to make something vs buy it. Bread, pizza, beer, cider, wine, pickles, hot sauce, BBQ, …anything. Grow a garden, build a deck, plant flowers, fix the car, or mower, or generator, etc.
One day, you’ll wake up and there won’t be anymore time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Don’t wait. Do it now.
Same, mostly. I would want them to appreciate brewing — along with pickling, lacto-fermenting, etc. — as part of a holistic approach to fermentation-based food stuffs.
This is a total vibe. I think it’s incredibly grounding to have at least one thing you can conjure up with a little bit of hard work, time and resources. .
I’ve got 3 older kids between the ages of 17 and 21. Honestly… I don’t expect any of them will ever be interested in beer or homebrewing. I keep trying to sit down and enjoy a beer with my 21-year old, several opportunities… and he just won’t. And I’m not going to force it on him if he really doesn’t care. It’s up to each of them what they care about or don’t, and what they want to do and when, or not or never. They have minds of their own. They know to come to me if they ever feel like it, that’s up to them.
I KNOW that the younger generation just isn’t very much into beer or doing anything creative. Not yet at least. If that changes a decade or two from now, great. But I won’t hold my breath.
So… I don’t expect to leave much of a legacy to my own progeny.
Meanwhile… my soul may or may not continue to live online, where I’ve wasted tens of thousands of hours documenting my thoughts on various topics for decades. So that part of me might live on, at least for a short while. Maybe a few months or even a couple years, maybe.
But my guess, realistically, is that 99.99%, if not 100%, of all my knowledge and experience will disappear when I do.
I agree that the younger generation isn’t into beer as much as previous generations were. And that’s a good thing. Great even. For everyone. Very simply, younger drinkers have far more choices than we ever did. And the bars and restaurants are far more creative with mixed drinks than they were back in the day. Not even close. Even the dive bars in my area have craft beers and drink specials available. Closest I ever came to “craft beer” when I was younger was Genny Cream. And mixed drinks were Jack & Coke and …??? I’m CERTAIN that if given today’s choices back then, past generations would have similar drinking habits as today’s.
And as far as creative, well from what I’ve seen, this younger generation is just as creative as mine was. Just different. And far smarter.
Same here. My kids are a few years younger, but they’re as creative as I ever have been. They just express / exercise that creativity in different ways. Time, tastes, and technology are always moving, and the kids move with them.
(That’s not to say they aren’t also every bit as lazy as I was at their ages; so they do sometimes require a good metaphorical swift kick to the rear to get them moving.)
Every kid is different. I have 4, the youngest is 23 - oldest is 30. They are all very creative but in different ways. The oldest makes mead and cider, raises bees and is into woodworking. The next one loves to garden, paints, and make quilts. The third taught herself to make dresses (w/o patterns ) and make wooden flowers for weddings. The youngest knits, is growing strawberries in her living room among other things.
Most young people that know today don’t believe there is anything they can’t do. Look up a topic on YouTube, watch a few videos and they’re off and running.
I don’t need to pass on my knowledge, they finding their own faster than I ever did.
I wish that my wife and I had gotten more of my grandmother’s recipes. Now they’re lost forever. But part of the problem is that they were all in her head… there was nothing written down, so we had to be there with her while she made something.
If only Vulcan mind melds were a thing.
I suppose you have the option of curating your knowledge and writing it down. Not too long after I got into brewing, my wife’s coworker shared her late husband’s brewing diary with us. I thought that was a really amazing thing and I got to know the guy a bit even though I’d never met him.
on one hand that absurd diversity in product selection has downsides, literally overthinking your everyday life in terms of consumption rather than activity. but idk.
but re: just young people being way less into beer - beer is still just as hard to get as when i was young, is way more expensive even comparatively, and you still cant drink in public.
weed comes in artisanal quality, up to 5 or even way more times stronger than the standard weed i was used to and is literally down to $5 a gram from legal stores here in canada. these stores are EVERYWHERE, up to 2 or 3 in a single strip mall. and you can just smoke in public. young people smoke a LOT of weed, and tbh i dont think its a good thing. note: i do not smoke weed anymore and im really glad i was able to stop.
not just being consolatory, but legacies on the internet are a very interesting topic. on one hand people would always say “if its on the internet - it will be there forever!”. whereas we see sites that seemed like they would last for eternity, or certain ahem legendary pics/videos etc have faded away or even just suddenly been 404’d permanently. then with the sheer volume of media stored, finding a single pic is a needle in a haystack. finding text, CURRENTLY more easily searchable is another thing. you being pretty prolific and well known, i am pretty sure people will in fact continue to read your direct posts, blogs, articles etc for a long long time and indirect knowledge from you for even longer.
we are finally at the point where our kids/grandkids will be able to read and see all the stuff we posted (if they are aware of our usernames, or are able to track us down), including up to pics, videos, stuff we’ve created. comparatively i have/had one film reel put onto VHS in the 80s that IS colour but has no sound of my grandparents and honestly i dont even know where it is right now. now im just sperging, but imagine analyzing media (books, news, music, literature etc etc) for academic history purposes in 50 years. the production of media, especially in non-european languages has been exponentially growing. it will probably have to be summarized by AI, literally out of human hands/eyes. we wont even be able to tell our story any more.
Probably 20 years ago my two older sisters published a cookbook for which they enlisted everyone they could ask from the church parish, for family heirloom recipes. They sold it as a church fund raiser and eventually it was so popular they had a third printing of it. It was quite a hit over a greater area than anyone could have guessed. 275 pages of recipe goodness from countless people throughout the community. I refer to it all the time.
When I was 19/20 I worked two doors from Obstfeld’s Jewish Delicatessen in Williamsport Pa. The couple had been WW2 refugees and had run the deli since coming to America. I will never forget Ilsa and Lou and the unparalleled food they served. They were up every day at 3am so we could all stop in at 7:30 and have fresh pastries and things still hot from the oven. Or soup at lunch made with fresh made beef stock that started at 3am… Lou’s baklava was such that I’m ruined for life on it now because nothing compares. I don’t know what they did but Ive never found it anywhere near like his. I’ve literally bought it and thrown it away because I know what it’s supposed to be like. I was such a regular they had the “Pastrami Phil” on the menu. Frizzled pastrami with cream cheese on a grilled onion roll. Makes my mouth water thinking about it now… That’s tabu as Kosher food goes btw…
They had 3 children, one a doctor, one an author and I don’t recall what the third did but all 3 were successful and had moved away and none wanted anything to do with the deli. When they retired, it was simply closed. Of all the people and places I lament the loss of, Ilsa, Lou and their deli, rank at the very top of the list. I stayed in touch with Ilsa for years after and occasionally I’d ask about how to produce certain dishes they made. I wish I’d asked what Lou did to make that baklava… My god that was good…
I don’t have any measure of their culinary skills, but they did inspire me to make the very best things I can, even and especially when using the simplest ingredients. It’s why I so appreciate really well made, simple beers.
My son is just starting high school, and has just as many hobbies as me (possibly more). The beautiful thing is that most of them only marginally overlap with mine. He loves music, but I’m into rock/metal and he’s into classical. I’m into beer/wine/mead, he’s into tea (and yes he’s been working on processing his own from our tea bush). He’s into cooking, but he finds his own recipes, and now even cooks them himself. He is largely self-taught, and he loves to share.
I’m blessed that I am learning just as much from my son right now as he does from me. Kids are hard-wired to rebel from their parents, so I don’t know how long this will last. But I’ll take it while I can, and I hold out hope that his generation is getting a lot of the best that the generations before his have to offer.
Beer in Ontario is a relative huge pain in the ass. It will likely open up over the coming years but:
-up until the late 2010s could ONLY be sold from LCBO or “The Beer Store” two monopolies that control alcohol in Ontario.
-ridiculous pricing, restrictive shelf-allowance ie. reserving huge amounts of shelf space at those monopolies guaranteed for the mega brewers.
-restrictive laws about handling it, drinking in public, buying from bars etc.
one thing is you only have to be 19 vs 21 in the states I guess.
-finally now it is allowed in SELECT approved supermarkets, not even most. but the premier is very much in favour of opening it up wide to destroy these stupid monopoly dinosaurs, and the unions are literally on strike right now. you can not buy spirits/liquor at the moment period in ontario except at bars, who will eventually run out if the strike continues.
in the 70s or earlier you had to basically get a license to buy booze at the LCBO, you’d go in and line up and choose from a billboard what you wanted. the clerk would go and get it and hand it to you. you could very easily be banned from buying alcohol if they deemed you a problem, a “drunk” (often applied in a racist manner) etc.
It’s funny you ask this question. Over the course of the last summer, my son and I were brewing a bunch of beers together. He loves helping in the process of brewing, he has been listening and learning. He even asked if I would create a cookbook of my “Great” beers so that when he is older he can brew them himself. I am not making him brew with me. I figure if he is really interested he will do it. If he does continue to brew and decides he want similar equipment to mine, I will either buy it for him or he will get mine if i retire from homebrewing or die.
