Any Homebrewers?

NerfHerder

Member
Just started dabbling in home brewing. I've got three gallons of mead (two different recipes) taking the long way to being tasty, and another three gallons of hard cider (three different recipes) going that should be ready to try next week.

Just curious if there is anyone else who's into it. I need an excuse to talk about it since brewing takes sooo looooong, lol

- Ben
 
My husband, DarkKnight, is a homebrewer. We just bought a house and moved this past weekend though, so he has nothing going at the moment. He's made several different ales, porters and such in the past, but failed miserably at hard cider.:)
 
Funny story.

I'm not a brewer and I don't even like alcoholic beverages.

But I had a friend who was a homebrewer. And he made a beer in tribute to GWAR's precursor band, Death Piggy. And the singer (at the time, he is deceased now) Dave, loved this beer. But as usual, talking business with Dave was futile, he was the sort to say, "That's a great idea, let's make it happen" and then 4 minutes later, he's forgotten all about it. So I networked the homebrewer, with the guy who handles business in the band. Got them talking. Then the homebrewer, who was lifelong friends with one of the owners of Cigar City Brewery in Tampa, FL, got them involved. Since then, 2012, the year I flew to Tampa for the meeting that brought all of this together, GWAR Beer has been a thing, and there is typically a big run of it for every annual GWARBQ festival.

The prototype bottles had my name on the back. I've got one of those, in my collection.

But I don't even like beer! Or alcohol of any sort.

I just thought I'd share my beer story, because you said you have time on your hands. *shrug* Hope your beverages turn out great! :)
 
My husband, DarkKnight, is a homebrewer. We just bought a house and moved this past weekend though, so he has nothing going at the moment. He's made several different ales, porters and such in the past, but failed miserably at hard cider.:)

Uh oh, I hope I don't have too much trouble with cider... Unfortunately I am allergic to hops so I am staying away from beer. Originally I intended to just do mead, but I found that I needed something that I would know how it was going a bit more near-term!

What was the problem with the cider? I should know within the next week or so if mine worked out...

- Ben
 
Funny story.

I'm not a brewer and I don't even like alcoholic beverages.

But I had a friend who was a homebrewer. And he made a beer in tribute to GWAR's precursor band, Death Piggy. And the singer (at the time, he is deceased now) Dave, loved this beer. But as usual, talking business with Dave was futile, he was the sort to say, "That's a great idea, let's make it happen" and then 4 minutes later, he's forgotten all about it. So I networked the homebrewer, with the guy who handles business in the band. Got them talking. Then the homebrewer, who was lifelong friends with one of the owners of Cigar City Brewery in Tampa, FL, got them involved. Since then, 2012, the year I flew to Tampa for the meeting that brought all of this together, GWAR Beer has been a thing, and there is typically a big run of it for every annual GWARBQ festival.

The prototype bottles had my name on the back. I've got one of those, in my collection.

But I don't even like beer! Or alcohol of any sort.

I just thought I'd share my beer story, because you said you have time on your hands. *shrug* Hope your beverages turn out great! :)

That's really cool. I don't think I've ever had any brushes with fame~ I would tell that story just because it's interesting, not just because someone's bored! lol

I have a dream of doing a really cool label and stuff to go with my mead so it looks all fancy and I can pretend I'm good at it... I've got all the plans all picked out... just gotta wait 6 more months until I can bottle!

Thanks for the good wishes, I guess we'll see ( =

- Ben
 
That's really cool. I don't think I've ever had any brushes with fame~ I would tell that story just because it's interesting, not just because someone's bored! lol

I have a dream of doing a really cool label and stuff to go with my mead so it looks all fancy and I can pretend I'm good at it... I've got all the plans all picked out... just gotta wait 6 more months until I can bottle!

Thanks for the good wishes, I guess we'll see ( =

- Ben

Yeah, my brushes with fame have been very specific and all pretty much related to GWAR, since I started getting friendly with them back in about 2007 or so. It's awesome, but it's mostly because the late singer was the kind of dude who readily befriended anybody who persisted in hanging around by the tour bus long enough, or who emailed him occasionally. He was really cool and really good to people. Just in general.

But yeah there are only so many beer stories a non-drinker can tell, right? lol I mean, I could talk about how one of the men in my former poly network is a home brewer. It is pretty cool that he does that. But it was still just...never really my thing...so that story pretty much begins and ends with, "Also, I was having sex sometimes with a guy who brews beer. We are still friends. I hear his beer is tasty." Not quite as good a story? :)

So there was a very brief clip of me walking around with a blowup doll, my own 15 minutes of fame was "I'm the chick who brought tons of sex dolls to the GWARBQ." The vid was taken in 2012, the first year I did that, and featured in both the 2013 and 2014 GWARBQ commercials. I was told that Dave himself hand picked the clips that went into the 2014 one, which was being put together before he died on 3/23/14. That year's festival featured a very cool Viking Funeral for his character, where they fired a flaming arrow into a boat on the lake, where Oderus Urungus lay in state on a bier of flowers. Interestingly, and true to form, no one had bothered to tell the fire department, and a fiberglass boat bearing about 80 lbs of foam latex makes quite a bit of smoke when it burns. But by the time the fire trucks pulled up, to the cheers of the crowd of thousands of fans, the boat had already mostly burned... Better to ask forgiveness, than permission! A sentiment that was actually pretty perfect in memory of Dave.

I am very, very briefly shown at about 1:36 of this video:

https://youtu.be/a7iwdxWgn74

(I appreciate the chance to talk about this because honestly, I get pretty bored too, so hey, let's both be entertained a bit?) :p
 
That's awesome. While I love music, I am not so much for live music. I've always been a little envious of those type events where people all have the band or the music in common but I generally hate crowds. I made the mistake of going to NYC before Christmas this year and it was not pretty in the crush near Rockefeller Center~

I guess my most interesting beer-related story is that I am allergic to beer (in college it was just losing my voice... eventually it moved to triggering my asthma, and eventually getting the full allergic reaction difficulty breathing, hives, *very* nearly went to the hospital over it) and I have given up on it entirely. I did manage to try beer in Belgium and Germany before it tried to kill me though, so that's sort of cool?

Now I'm focusing on meads and ciders with the brewing - mead resonates with me since I have sufficient viking ancestry, and cider is faster, and always good... although... considering I haven't actually succeeded at anything, I suppose we will yet see?

I'm glad you enjoyed telling the story - I definitely enjoyed reading it and I can just imagine... That's the great thing about meeting new people, being able to tell all the old stories. (=
 
You know, I didn't even think about it, even though I actually typed the date. It's the third anniversary of Brockie's passing. My Facebook has been blowing up with memories about him all day. No wonder I'm feeling sentimental and nostalgic and stuff.
 
A friend of ours makes his own brew and it is good. It's a dark beer, but goes down very smooth and has a good taste. We drink it when he and his wife have parties a few times a year. He will make 2 - 3 kegs of it. I think he makes it 6% ABV, but I don't remember off the top of my head at the moment.
 
The problem with the hard cider was - I think - that he used apple juice as the base. He should have started out with apple cider instead. It was so dry, it was completely undrinkable.
 
A friend of ours makes his own brew and it is good. It's a dark beer, but goes down very smooth and has a good taste. We drink it when he and his wife have parties a few times a year. He will make 2 - 3 kegs of it. I think he makes it 6% ABV, but I don't remember off the top of my head at the moment.

That's great, I wonder what he puts in it. I'm starting to collect recipes and figure out what I want to try... I think the next one will be a hard strawberry lemonade.... I suppose I should see how my current batches turn out first!

I am expecting my ciders to be 5-7% ABV and my meads to be ~14% ABV... although I do not have a meter-majigger yet, so I can only guesstimate.

- Ben
 
The problem with the hard cider was - I think - that he used apple juice as the base. He should have started out with apple cider instead. It was so dry, it was completely undrinkable.

I think there is some risk of one of my ciders turning out extra dry... the bottles I just got didn't come with enough caps, so I'm letting it go for now. My theory is that I can always try stopping fermentation and backsweetening with a can of apple juice concentrate... but I don't actually know how any of this works, I just know what I read and what I'm trying.

I did manage to use up half my bottles bottling another batch and it's... okay. The flavour of the cinnamon changed a bit in fermentation, and I suspect it could use a week or two in the bottle to mellow out... but as I said...I have no idea what I'm doing, so we'll see! (=

- Ben
 
One of my partners, Zymurgist (see what I did there?) is an amazing home-brewer. Everything from stouts to lagers to IPA's to wheat beers to crazy experiments. I've watched him work on it and it's quite the science. I love that he gets so nerdily into it, and that he will let me add my ridiculously un-refined tasting comments into his brewing notes! :D

It does mean we have very few sober date nights though. All that beer has to go somewhere!
 
That's great, I wonder what he puts in it. I'm starting to collect recipes and figure out what I want to try... I think the next one will be a hard strawberry lemonade.... I suppose I should see how my current batches turn out first!

I am expecting my ciders to be 5-7% ABV and my meads to be ~14% ABV... although I do not have a meter-majigger yet, so I can only guesstimate.

- Ben

Next time we go this Summer, I can ask him.
 
One of my partners, Zymurgist (see what I did there?) is an amazing home-brewer. Everything from stouts to lagers to IPA's to wheat beers to crazy experiments. I've watched him work on it and it's quite the science. I love that he gets so nerdily into it, and that he will let me add my ridiculously un-refined tasting comments into his brewing notes! :D

It does mean we have very few sober date nights though. All that beer has to go somewhere!

I am ashamed to admit that I actually had to look up the word Zymurgist.... I will have to find an opportunity to use it now!

I definitely appreciate the 'experimentation' side of things, and I think that's what's got me the most into it. And I've managed to make some 'drinkable' results relatively quickly!

The best part is definitely finding people to share it with, though. (=
 
That's great, I wonder what he puts in it. I'm starting to collect recipes and figure out what I want to try... I think the next one will be a hard strawberry lemonade.... I suppose I should see how my current batches turn out first!

I am expecting my ciders to be 5-7% ABV and my meads to be ~14% ABV... although I do not have a meter-majigger yet, so I can only guesstimate.

- Ben

Next time we go, I'll ask him. They were going to have one last weekend, but have to reschedule, because they had a family emergency.
 
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