I’ve been at this homebrewing business for a long time, starting in January of 1994. Throughout that period there have been hiatuses, and then there has been my most recent hiatus. Every couple of years it’s not been uncommon for me to go six months without a batch, but there’s been nothing like this last one.
The cause was my late, lamented kegerator. While I initially planned to have 2 kegs of homebrew and one of commercial beer, it quickly became 2 of commercial and one of homebrew, and then not soon after, all commercial beer. Keg beer was such a bargain that stopping brewing didn’t bother me that much. As a result, I brewed all of about 6 batches during my kegerator’s existence, and two of those were teaching other people to brew, rather than for personal consumption.
But once the kegerator died last December I quickly tired of paying 6 pack prices for 100% of my beer consumption. I love craft beer, and it’s worth the money without doubt, but, frankly, I don’t have enough money to pay retail for my desired level of beer consumption. So, in May of this year I decided to resume brewing.
Atypical for myself, I was cautious, opting (for the first time ever) to brew two kits from Northern Brewer (albeit with minor upping of the hops and lowering of ETOH) to see if I could really stick with it – especially since I’d now be bottling (it had been at least a decade), rather than kegging or using Party Pigs.
When these went well and the results were good enough to order some bulk malt from Missouri Malt, I again managed to go conservative and work with only three grains (a sack of American 2 row, 5 lbs. of CaraPils and 15 lbs. of raw wheat) and four hops (Citra, Centennial, Columbus and Magnum), and focus on brewing what forms the bulk of my consumption – hoppy, session strength (4.5% ish) beers. Historically, I’ve brewed these well, and if I could move the bulk of my beer drinking to homebrew, I’d have cash enough to buy the lagers and sours needed to satiate my other beer cravings.
This has worked better than expected. Having a limited selection is generating some great creativity, and I’ve almost finished the first sack of base malt and the CaraPils, killed the Citra hops and am down to just a bit of the others. It’s also very freeing not to have hundreds of pounds of grain lurking in the basement, hoping that I’ll get off my fat ass and put them to use before they go bad.
I now have a sack of floor-malted Maris Otter on the way
, as well as a hops reload (more Citra, and some East Kent Goldings and Styrian Goldings for turning that MO into some classic bitters), and couldn’t be more excited. The best proof, however, is that the homebrew is disappearing as quickly as it’s ready:
Here is one of the last pints of my summer sipper just before going to fulfill its destiny as a tasty, refreshing, hoppy delight. And here’s to homebrewing at full speed once again. It’s nice to be back, and, more importantly, to be enjoying both the process and the produce.



