How It All Started

I've been asked more than a few times what got me started in the hobby of making my own beer at home.

A few years ago, Alton Brown on Good Eats showed how easy it is to brew your own beer. I was fascinated that you could even do such a thing. My palette was already refining with my other favorite brewed beverage - coffee. I knew there would be equipment to purchase for homebrewing beer, and I didn't know that I'd enjoy the hobby enough to warrant the expense.

Just this last fall, I discovered that a coworker of mine homebrews. His next brew was going to be an oatmeal stout, and he invited me to join him. It was four of the funnest hours I'd had in quite a while. He walked me through all the steps of the brewing process. We shared leftover enchiladas for lunch, and I tasted a couple of his beers. My favorite was a pumpkin ale that he and one of his brew buddies had done, and it was exactly the kind of beer I would have paid for at the store. I was hooked.

A month later, he invited my whole family to join his for dinner, and to bottle the oatmeal stout. Our kids played games, our wives chatted, we got down to business. Bottling was simple - in fact, I found that nothing in the whole hobby was terribly complicated. And I enjoyed yet another of his beers with our spaghetti casserole dinner.

I saw from a couple of catalogs that I could get into all the equipment I needed for around $200. I saved my pennies and made the purchase, and I enjoyed my very first brew day this last January. When I cracked open my first amber ale six weeks later, I was speechless at how well the recipe had come together and how easy it was.

I have four brews under my belt now, including the saison that went into the fermenter just this last weekend. I think I'm going to be hanging onto this hobby for a while.