Home Brew

After Monday's excitement and stressful days at work for both of us, we unwound by starting some new home-brew! We initially got a home-brew set-up for our wedding and managed to brew one whole batch before we lost the lid to the brewing equipment, making it worthless. We found replacement lids, but we couldn't justify paying $8 shipping for a $2 lid that weighed practically nothing. We finally got our ducks in a row and ordered the lid, some new flavors of beer, and even got 2 additional set-ups! We can now brew 6 gallons of beer at a time, 2 gallons each flavor. This time we are doing an Irish Stout (Ty's hoping it mimics his favorite, Guiness), a Pumpkin Lager, and an Apple Cider Beer. I made my own Cider Beer with a recipe I found and tweaked a bit, so I'm a bit nervous about that one. After the fun of making it, you have to let it sit in a dark, cool place for 2-3 weeks. Then you get the excitement of bottling it and waiting an additional 3 weeks to 3 months before drinking it! We are so excited to get back into this hobby. We have our next set of brews all lined up, too - Mocha Cherry Stout, Cranberry Maibock (which apparently is more like a mead due to the sweetness and alcohol content), and another Cider Beer if the first turns out. This is a hobby that is pretty much limitless in how much you learn about and how involved you get. We started out slow and easy, this time we're ramping it up a bit with some extra steps and ingredients, and soon, we're hoping to have confidence to come up with our own recipes and concoctions!