![]() ![]() When I learn something new, I want to try it. And why does my pale ale taste like a pear flavored Jolly Rancher instead of a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale? So I started to read. And this is where the journey to opening and operating a brewery all starts… making those beers with Liv and asking simple questions like, how much alcohol is in this beer? Why does this have kind of a band aid taste, or, why does the yeast take off and form a krausen faster in some batches than other batches. ![]() I’ve got this pesky habit of asking questions cause I want to understand how things work… I’m curious you know. But we made it, and it wasn’t terrible… usually. No hydrometers, no temperature control, no chiller… just boil the extract, add the hops, pitch into a carboy and wait til it cooled down the next morning before pitching the yeast. It was a sweet rhythm… brew a batch, bottle a batch, open a batch. But I dug hanging out with her, and it was a great excuse to sit outside and drink beer while she brewed. I couldn’t figure out how it was worth it when beer was only a little more expensive to buy than to make. One of her three brothers, all of whom home-brew, bought and sent us a home-brewing kit to learn to brew on. I moved to Honolulu with my partner, Liv, in 2008. This is Liv’s brother Paul around the time he sent that homebrew kit out here. Yet, all through college I never once thought to ask how beer was made. ![]() By the end of college, I was that guy that showed up to a party with a six-pack of Mad River Extra Pale Ale for me and a 12 pack of PBR for everyone else. I started working my way into the IPA hole that we all get stuck in. Deschutes and Mendocino Brewing company were next. It was Anderson Valley’s Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout that finally turned me into a beer drinker. I started to come around to beer when I went to Humboldt State University in Northern California. I thrive on curiosity, and after 12 years of reading, studying, and brewing, I still have a lot to learn. And that potential leads to far more details. The details get more specific, but the implications of those details expand the potential of what a brewery can do. It’s the details that get me… learning to brew is like following fractals. ![]()
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