The Den

Why brew my own beer?  Especially when there are so many good beers available where I live? As with many hobbies, there are as many reasons for doing it as there are doers. For me, homebrewing provides several pleasures, first and foremost - beer!

But beyond the end product itself, brewing gives me something meaningful to share with others, something I made myself. Its one thing to give someone a bottle of a good commercial beer, but its so much more when you give them a bottle (or a pint) of your own. Not only do I get to share the beer, but I also enjoy sharing the brewing process itself, as I'm doing by writing these web postings. Lately I've been brewing a batch every 2-4 weeks, and I love it when friends come by hang out, have a pint, join in the making, and perhaps get interested enough to try on their own.

Brewing also adds to my forms of creativity and inner geekiness (broad, but not too deep). In fact, I find one of the coolest things about homebrewing as a hobby is that it allows the brewer to be as into it as they want, and still they can create something wonderful. People with zero interest in the technical details of brewing chemistry can turn out terrific beer, as can people on a tight budget. Throw in more time, money, or depth of interest, and things just get better. It can be solitary, introspective, and zen-like, or utterly social - just listen to the customers and staff at any homebrew shop on a typical saturday.

Even though I've been brewing for about 14 years now, I still brew with what many would call an 'intermediate' method - I use pre-made malt extract and add specialty grains, rather than starting from the malted grain itself. This is a conscious choice. I have brewed 'all-grain' in the past, but I find that the mash/steep-extract method works well for me in terms of interest level, time commitment, and quality of the end product. If I want ultra-high quality with perfect consistency, I'd rather buy a very good commercial beer than invest the time, money, and attention to detail needed to make my own.

This is the first of a series of posts in which I'll give an overview and pictures of how I make a keg of beer. I've been meaning to do it for a long time, and I've got some pictures and text for it already.  But I realized that if I wanted to actually do it, I should do it in installments, then it won't be one huge task that I'll never get around to. Now it'll be several small ones that I'll never get around to.

Consider this the introduction, and hopefully now that I've done it, I'll have incentive to post a bit more often.

Cheers!