Homebrew!

Categories: Cookbooks , Entertainment , Local Interest , Nonfiction , Arts & Crafts

I am not one of those crafty hobbyist people.  But in the last year or so, I have found a hobby that is fun, rewarding, and serves both the creative, right-brain person and the left-brain, analytical science guy within.  I am talking about brewing beer.  Though not an alkie or a weekend warrior, I do enjoy beer.  Good beer, that is, as I am a serious beer snob.  Enough about me, though, let's talk about brewing.  It is simpler than you might imagine.  Just hop (pun intended) in the car, drive down to Listermann's, buy the gear and a kit, bring ‘em home, and brew it up right in your very own kitchen.  Three weeks in the fermenter (a five-gallon bucket with a lid), three more weeks conditioning in the bottle, and you have two cases of yumminess to imbibe.  Time for a party! 

A couple words of advice: 1. Keep everything clean, and 2. During the long boil, don't stop stirring.  Mother Nature handles the rest.  Now, it is simple, but you can make it as complicated as you like when it comes to adornments--recipes, flavorings, adjuncts, bottle label design or kegging, etc.  My friend and brewing mentor swears by kegging, claiming that once you keg you'll never go back to bottling.  We'll see...If you wanna totally geek out on your new hobby, you can join a homebrew club.  At least two exist in the 'Nati: the Bloatarian Brewing League and the Cincinnati Malt Infusers.  Also, if you dig gardening (sorry), you can even grow your own hops! 

There are books to read:

Beer: Tap Into the Art and Science of Brewing, 

Designing Great Beers: The Ultimate Guide to Brewing Classic Beer Styles,

New Brewing Lager Beer: The Most Comprehensive Book for Home- and Microbrewers,

The Good Beer Book: Brewing and Drinking Quality Ales and Lagers,

Beer Lover's Companion: A Guide to Producing, Brewing, Tasting, Rating, and Drinking Around the World, 

Brew Chem 101,

Brew Ware: How To Find, Adapt & Build Homebrewing Equipment,

Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great-Tasting Beer, 

The American Homebrewers Association's The Winners Circle: 10 Years of Award-Winning Homebrew Recipes,

Homebrew Favorites: A Coast-To-Coast Collection of Over 240 Beer and Ale Recipes, and More Homebrew Favorites: 260 New Brews! 

And of course many websites to investigate, a few of which are: All About Beer, Real Beer.com, and Beertown.org.

Have fun (though maybe not too much fun), don't drink & drive, and soon you may find truth in the expression, "Life is too short to drink cheap beer,” unless of course you brew it yourself...