How did you get into brewing?

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Permalink Reply by Nolen Smith on October 7, 2009 at 1:57pm

Great topic and great stories. Here's mine: Being originally from Arkansas (go ahead, tell your best hillbilly joke), I grew up around crap beer: bud, bud light, miller, etc, etc. I became interested in beer when, in my early 20's, two things happened - I went to London for two weeks and drank real ale, and first tasted Samuel Adams' Boston Lager (it seems tame now days, but man did it blow me away the first time I tried it).

I met my ex-wife in '92, a Kiwi working in Arkansas, and we started talking about moving to NZ and getting married. In preparation for that adventure, as you do, I quit my job and started helping out a mate, Mark Crossley, who happened to be building a small brewery in a popular local pizza place - Vino's Brew Pub (originally built out of old stainless steam vats he got at auction from the local prison, but now a proper brewpub setup). I quickly discovered how fun, easy and economical it was to make decent beer and started brewing at home (he also had a 5-gallon setup at the brewery for test batches that I was able to use - awesome). My first homebrew was a Coopers Ale kit with some crystal and a sh*t load of hops added. Mark then started a home brew supply shop as part of the brewery and he hired me for the summer to help at both the brewery and the shop (first and only job I've ever had where we had morning and afternoon beer and cigar breaks).

Finally got things sorted to move to NZ in '95 with the hope to eventually start a small brewery (father in-law was even offering to fund it). But for reasons too long to go in to in this post, we ended up in Wanganui (no offense to those Wanganuians amongst us). First thing I did was go to the LHBS and started asking for supplies: grains, hops, mashing gear, etc... the old guy looked at me like I was from another planet and responded with, "uhhh... I have these Black Rock kits." Long story short... I got frustrated and gave up in '96.

Then, about two years ago, I mentioned to my girlfriend that I needed to find myself a hobby, she suggested that I start brewing again (if only she knew then what she was getting in to). I visited Great Expectations in the Hutt, met ol' Grumpy C*nt and just about gave up the idea. Then I discovered Dunedin Malthouse and spoke to Dennis (which I've posted about previously) and he convinced me to give it another go... so here I am, brewing again and slowly improving my technique (with a big thanks to a lot of you guys). ...sorry, the story ended up a bit longer than I expected it to be.

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Permalink Reply by jt on October 7, 2009 at 6:18pm

I visited Great Expectations in the Hutt, met ol' Grumpy C*nt and just about gave up the idea.

Common thought, sadly, it's a wonder that anyone gets started in Welly ...

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Permalink Reply by Glynn Foster on October 7, 2009 at 7:25pm

Anyone with a bit of clue will find themselves here and find that there's no end of wisdom. Generally you want those sort of people rather than the lazy ones that like to have everything fall on their lap. Hrm, maybe a new sticky forum topic for advice to beginner home brewers....

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Permalink Reply by denimglen on October 7, 2009 at 3:09pm

Fuck I've told this story a million times but here goes...

Once upon a time I was a young punx kid who liked getting drunk, and I didn't even like beer (I'm surprised so many do when 98% of the option is Lion red, Speights, Heinekin etc etc).

One of my crusty buddies from down the line was up and was having a chat, and he gave me a copy of his 'zine that had a recipe for 'prison cider' - basically apple juice, some refined sugar and some baking yeast in a coke bottle with a balloon over the top to catch the CO2.

Anyways, I made a few bottles of this stuff and by time I drank it it was nasty cloudy and tasted like liquid bread, but I could tell that there was something decent underneith - the process just need refining, plus I figured I could get drunk for cheap.

So then I go to Brewer's Coop, talk to Mike there, tell him what I was up to, and to my surprise I wasn't laughed all the way out of the store, but I did walk out with a Brewcraft fermenter kits and all the bits and pieces, which included a beer kit and I bought a cider kit to go with it.

So I brew the beer first do get my feet wet, even though at this point I couldn't give two shits about beer. I bottle it all up and then drink it - and this stuff isn't actually too bad, maybe there is something to this beer thing...

I brew my cider next and then decide I should try another beer. Maybe I only liked it because I made it.

So I brew about 5 or 6 kits beers, and my palate starts to develop a bit and I start noticing how nasty kit beers actually are.

I kinda feel I'm failing this beer thing, so I start doing a little bit of spirits, which is OK but gets boring kinda fast.

Then on a May morning of '07 wagging tech for the day I decide to give beer another shot - still at this point I was relatively limited in the types I've beer I had tried, basically only LN and DB beers - I visited howtobrew.com, and see that this extract thing isn't too hard. I flick over the style guidelines and this English pale ale hing sounds pretty good.

So I make a trip to BC and pick up the stuff I need, then it's basically all down hill from there...

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Permalink Reply by Mike Neilson on October 7, 2009 at 3:14pm

I started brewing because im a male, eg I need something to keep my mind occupied at all times!! I had just wound up a business I was in which took up all time and found myself pondering my next addiction, my Hot Rod was on stand by so it couldnt be that, So I thought whats the next best thing? Beer.

I went down to the Great Expectations and bought a starter kit, brewed that, than Drunk a bottle of it and tipped out the remaining 29 bottles, I thought there must be a way I can make beer that tastes like Craftbeer and remembered back to a drunkn (me) conversation with the brewer/owner of Wigram at a beer fest in Upper Hutt, and he told me how he used to homebrew with grains and hops just like how he does current.
After a few google searchs I stumbled onto this website, asked a few questions read a few replys spent a huge wack of cash on gear (you dont need to). and here I am now I brew more than I can drink, I do it all as I love brewing, probably more than I enjoy drinking it.

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Permalink Reply by Ally Mcg on October 7, 2009 at 7:24pm

Bit late on this and I'm sure I've told this before but mid last year drinking an excellent debut beer from a new brewery I thought 'wish i could make beer this good'. So, went to Yr Shout in Linwood and bought the beginners kit, fermenter, extract malt, hydrometer etc etc.

Brewed the K&K and thought it was pretty rubbish, so did a bunch of reading and moved thru to partial mashes. Chucked my 5th ever beer (i think) in CS2 and it went down well. Inspired some more did more reading, scheming, a brew every weekend. Winter this year started talking commercial brewing with a mate. Started chucking some pilot brews together, and we got to a pretty decent NZ PA recipe which we decided we'd contact brew.

Fast forward to today and its in the conditioning tank at Invercargill Brewery. Only trouble going down there to brew is it made my low-brow set up the most annoying thing in the world this weekend. Time for an upgrade.

Wonder how many more commerical brewers this threads gonna winkle out....

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Permalink Reply by Sinykill on October 7, 2009 at 8:22pm

Great great gandpappy was a brewer, great grandpappy was brewer, grandpappy was a brewer, my mother the black sheep of the family was not brewer. But you can't fight the genes. (cue nurture vs nature debate).

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Permalink Reply by Martin Bridges on October 7, 2009 at 9:41pm

What an awesome thread!

I was heavily involved in beer back in the UK - I helped run a bar in west London with 3 or 4 real ales on tap at all times, got it to be runner-up in the CAMRA National Club of the Year compo, plus I helped organise the Ealing Beer Festival. However I'd never been tempted to brew my own. When there was so much decent beer easily available, why would I?

Anyway, when I was leaving to move to NZ a couple of years ago my colleagues threw me a leaving party at the Bree Louise pub (which Luke will know) and one of my presents was a homebrew kit. "You won't be able to get any decent beer down there, so you'll have to brew your own" was the implicit message. The kit got packed into a container with the rest of our belongings and made its way slowly down here.

Luckily it arrived around the same time as we'd found a house on the Shore. I discovered Hauraki Home Brew and they were really helpful. Tiffany set me up with a basic set of equipment and I brewed the kit I'd been given. And amazingly it was drinkable. That was it, I was hooked. I bought How To Brew and got into making extract-based beers. Some of them were pretty damned good but I realised that the flexibility I craved would only come with a move to all-grain, so I finally rigged up an eski with a braided hose and made the jump. This forum plus other internet sources such as The Brewing Network have made a huge difference to my brewing. And I just love doing it.

Where to from here? Well, the shed brewery is now pretty much fully operational but that's not really much of a step up. The long term dream is to have a brewpub somewhere, but that'll have to wait until the family is a little older and risks are a little easier to take. The IT industry may be dull, but it certainly provides a standard of living which is hard to give up. I still keep my eyes and ears open for interesting beer-related business ventures though. I understand there may be some spare capacity in a brewery somewhere in the central North Island....

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Permalink Reply by Beer_ledgend on October 8, 2009 at 8:45am

I must be one of the few non home brewers on the site :(.
But can share how I started rating beer:

Way back in 2001, I was living in South Australia. Moved over to be with a girl. I was drinking at my local pub, The Earl of Leicester, which had a Beer Legends club, I.E they had 80 bottled beers, drink you way through them and you get a shirt and you name goes on the honour board. Anyway, we broke up, I sort of continued drinking different beers and then discovered another great beer web sit, ratebeer. came back to new Zealand and found much better beers.

Has become a great hobby, beer hunting. I know all of you brew great beer and but as Martin said previously, why brew when there are some great beers out there, ok you also find some doggy ones as well. :)

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Permalink Reply by Barry on October 8, 2009 at 10:26am

Always been a beer drinker, for as long as I can remember. My dad is one of those typical Lion Red drinkers - never strays far from it. My brothers and I, and my sister come to think of it, have always liked a beer or 3. Much to (teetotaller) Mums dismay.

I started seeing this girl you see. It was serious. I nearly wrecked it a few times - drunkeness isn't an endearing quality, for her it's intolerable. Anyway, her Poppa used to brew beer. They are a massive family, weekly get togethers were always washed down with lashings of Nev's homebrew. Neville was a fantastic chap, a really great man. He taught me how to brew. Kit stuff only, but he had done it the 'proper' way before the advent of the kit. Shame he never got to see me do it the proper way.

So the next Christmas I got a homebrew kit. This was about 1996 I think. I brewed kits for a good year or two before that fateful batch. That one batch put me off for a good 10 years. It's not that it was bad, only that it never carbonated. So it say in the in-laws basement for 10 years untouched.

As my working life progressed and money wasn't as tight my beer tastes started to get richer. I moved from generic NZ Draughts and lagers to the good stuff - Monteiths, Macs. Monteiths in it's varieties was my wedding beer (yes, to the same girl). Safe to say I didn't really have much of a clue. Well, how could you? Auckland was bereft of clues when it comes to good beer.

My older and wiser brother was studying in Nelson, Wellington and eventually Christchurch at the time, every trip home he'd stop by this amazing wholesalers (Regionals) and grab a few decent ales to bring home. The flavours in these things were fantastic, I couldn't describe any particular thing, just an overall sensation of WOW. Where do I get some of these without waiting for an annual visit? So I started looking for Emersons and buying it whenever I could. And of course it's expensive, so the next consideration was starting to brew again. By this time I was working with computers and the internet so where does one look for information? Online. Which led me to the NZ Homebrewers group on yahoo, and eventually here (well to v1.0 of here). After years of being a student of beer my real beer education had begun. Before long I knew kits weren't going to cut it. So I got plain extract, hops and yeast from Hauraki and some good advice from Tiffany, a big pot and started doing nearly full boils. Then I kitted myself up with a mash tun and started doing partials. Within a year I had a full system, grain mill, kegs and I've never looked back.

Beer in my opinion is an everyday drink. Homebrew is my mainstay, I have no idea what I would drink if I didn't make my own beer.

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Permalink Reply by Stu McKinlay on October 8, 2009 at 10:44am

An emotional rollercoaster Barry, much like life. Nice to hear your story.

Made me think that I really need to get up north and sit down for some beers with you sometime soon. Until then... brew strong brother!

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Permalink Reply by Martin Bridges on October 8, 2009 at 6:55pm

You just need to get your arse up here Stu anyway. There's a few of us would like to sit down for a beer or two with ya bro.

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