Tuesday, June 12, 2007

First Post - A brief history of my beer life

This is my very first post in my very first Blog. I have been an active homebrewer since 1991 and an avid beer drinker since I was able to drink. Like most people, I started drinking the mainstream Bud/Coors/Miller stuff and my purchases were based on whatever was the cheapest at the time. If it was $9.99 a case then it was our favorite beer. (Now I drink single bottles that are sometimes double that price.)

I then branched out to imported German lagers like Beck's. The first non-blond beer I ever drank was Beck's Dark. Not long after that I discovered English Ales and that led to Belgian Ales and then the American Craftbrewing industry started to come alive and I was in heaven. I remember trying to plan business trips around great beer cities like Denver where I used to go once a year for a software conference. Wynkoop in Denver was my very first Brewpub visit.

I started homebrewing because I liked the idea of making beer to my tastes and at the time I lived in Virginia Beach, VA and the beer scene was almost non-existent. The first beer I made was a pale ale that came with the starter equipment kit I bought at a wholesale club. I still have and occasionally use the equipment that came with that kit. My latest beer in the fermenter is a Flanders Sour Red style using an ale yeast/wild yeast blend cultured from Roeselare, Belgium. I like sour beers. The barrels pictured under the links are in Rodenbach Brewery in Roeselare, Belgium.

That's my start into beerdom. I have since traveled to Europe and many places in the US mainly for beer. My wife always wonders how I can just happen to find a brewpub or a brewery to tour when we are on vacation. She doesn't see the hours of planning I put in so I can "accidentally" luck in to a great beer place.

1 comment:

Al said...

Welcome to the beer blogosphere!

- Al