I live in Chico, CA. Sierra Nevada Brewery calls Chico their home. I can drive down 20th st. and smell their wort, the hops, smell it all cooking. It's been this way since I can remember. I have been drinking Sierra Nevada ales since just after high school, and they have always been my favorite brewery in the area. Their beers all have such flavor, and it's what I crave in a beer. Flavor, Consistency, Color, Alcohol content.
I have quickly become a beer connoisseur in the last 8 years or so. My standards are judged by Stone Breweries Arrogant Bastard, or their Imperial Russian Stout. Or Sierra Nevada's Pale ale, and their Bigfoot. North Coast Breweries Old Rasputin. These are places that are keeping beer alive. Not just the, "let's buy a 36 pack and get drunk at marty's house," type beer. No, they're keeping the, "this beer has a flavr!" beer alive. The stuff that makes you want to sit and enjoy it, and not dump it down a funnel, into a tube to shove down your throat, and then vomit on the sidewalk. I would spend a whole evening with a single 24oz bottle of Stone Imperial Russian Stout in my hand, just soaking in the malt, the muddy consistency, the smell, the %12.1 alc. content.
I don't mean to sound like a commercial. Just putting a little back story behind things. Or more of an explanation.
I had always thought that my current job description, as a computer tech, would be what I spent my life doing. Fixing Hardware, teaching people how to use programs, etc. It wasn't until I decided to try making my own beer, while I was sitting at work, that my life changed dramatically. Unfortunately I have no pictures of my first batch to show you. I had been reading a book on how to do it, and I had a couple cans of malt syrups, and a 2oz. bag of hops, for a 3 gallon batch.
Following the directions the best I could, I started water boiling, and threw in the ingredients. The pot boiled and the wort turned a dark brown, and within minutes I was starting to get afraid that I was in over my head. After an hour of cooking everything, I threw it in my bathtub to cool for an hour or two. By this time it was near 10pm and I had work the next day, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from finishing this. I dumped the cooled wort into the fermentor bucket with another gallon of cold water.
It was then that I realized I hadn't done anything with the yeast. Quickly I threw it in some water with a tsp of sugar to try and get it to start up. I let it sit for a half hour, then gave up and threw it in the bucket.
The lid was tamped down on the bucket, and I setup the airlock to install in the lid. I pushed it through the hole, and the rubber o-ring pops out and dissapears into the wort.
"Oh shit..." I mutter, and lean back against the cabinet to sit on the floor, and immediately sit in a puddle of water.
I take the lid off the bucket, siphon the wort out into these cheapass mr. beer kegs that I still to this day have not used for anything but transferring beer into bottles... and dig out the rubber washer which had sank to the bottom. Affixing it in place, I made sure the airlock was in the hole and the washer still in place before I put the lid back on the wort and shove it in my closet.
Hooray, my first batch! And it came out great! My friends liked it, and it had a decent alcohol content. I'm 1 for 1.
After that one, I tried a porter, this time using a partial grain recipe, and a lot more hops, as well as doing a full 5 gallons. Came out great! 2 for 2! yeah!
I even had a friend tell me that the porter I had done was better than most of what he gets in the store. Which to me was the mother of compliments, see'ing as it was my second batch ever.
It was after that batch, that I realized, that I have finally found what I truly love doing. Not just something that I think would make me money, and I MIGHT be happy doing it one day. But something that I truly take joy in doing. Brewing.
And today, as another batch of porter, and a batch of imperial russian stout sits in secondary fermentation in my closet, and a recipe that I made for a nice strong dark Irish red sit's on the drawing board, I feel happy. Happy that I know now that someday I will be doing what I love, and see'ing the smiles on other people's faces as they taste one of the most delicious brew's they will ever drink. And I made it.
Here's some pictures of my current batches:
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