Welcome to my adventure

My beer story starts in my twenties when I started working in the bar and restaurant scene in Oklahoma City. It was there that I had my first craft beer at tapwerks which offered a huge selection of beers and styles I'd never heard of. From there I went on to try other new craft beers like Boulevard Wheat as they gained popularity and availability in the limited market of a blue law state.

After meeting and marrying my lovely wife and moving to Portland Oregon I learned quickly to love all the nuances styles of craft beer and dove head first into hoppy varieties while still enjoying a PBR while watching shows like a true hipster. It was here that I first attended and volunteered at a festivals, pouring tasters and trying all kinds of new styles of beer. I toured some of my first and favorite breweries, and really began pursuing craft beer as an interest.

During a short move back to St. Louis I was pulled into my first home brewing experiences. I joined a group of the homebrew Dad's from the school my wife was teaching at and learned to brew via extract batches and basic brewing techniques like mashing, boiling, chilling etc. We even were able to partner with the pro brewers down at 4 Hands to brew a beer for the schools annual fundraiser where I first learned about vorlauf and sparging. I also was super fortunate to live next door to an avid all grain brewer that also kegged his own brews and was considering going pro. He taught me so much about the infusion mash process, hops, building recipes, and types of equipment and I'm forever grateful (Thanks Paul).

Once we moved to the Boulder area and bought our first home I have been scheming for a place to brew my own beer and this October we purchased a home with a garage and some extra cash to invest in a system. It was finally time.

I opted for a 5 gallon all grain brewing kit from Ss Brewtech. It offered a fully stainless steel kettle, insulated mashtun and hlt and a temperature controlled conical fermenter.

Its definitely a pretty expensive initial system but I really wanted something that would last a long time and would be able to keep clean as easy as possible. I also wanted to have a simple approach to temperature controlled fermentation and the FTSs system is fantastic with just a cooler of ice and a wall outlet. I've also purchased an old fridge to use as a kegerator and a single keg and co2 system for kegging which I plan to eventually outfit with taps and lines. Outside of what the kit provides I've added quick disconnects for my hoses, a small anvil pump and some hop baskets to keep particulate low.

Outside of the primary system I've also invested in a small amount of bottling supplies for test batches and a couple of carboys to do more batches I can ferment and age in a crawl space. Someday a barrel would be fun.

This is my first brewing venture as the head brewer and I hope you enjoy reading along as I bring new homebrewers in to help and learn to love this hobby of brewing from grain to glass. Prost!