What you've missed...

  So I thought I'd bring everyone up to speed on what I have done so far.  I'm sure some of you are thinking that I must be crazy to think that I could successfully open a brew pub, but if you know me you know that I rarely do things without careful planning and calculation.  For instance, I have been brewing for two years and only now have committed to blogging about it.

  I first decided to start brewing when I moved into a house with five friends that played on the ultimate team with me.  We were expecting to consume copious amounts of alcohol over the following year, so I was looking for a way to make that as cheap as possible.  After all, I was a starving college kid. What better way to save money than making beer, right?  I know, it's the first thought everyone has when they're trying to save money: 'make beer!'...or bathtub gin, but there isn't a lot of literature on bathtub gin so I thought beer would be a safer bet. I bought a homebrew kit from monsterbrew.com (prices aren't necessarily the best for everything, but they have good stuff and I've never waited more that 48 hours to receive my order).  That was in October of 2009 and I haven't looked back.

   The first beer I made was an ingredient kit that came free with the equipment.  It was an amber ale.  Nothing special, but it tasted good and was alcoholic.  And since I invested $100 on the equipment, I knew I needed to brew a few more 5 gallon (~48 beer) batches before I had gotten my money's worth.  So over the next few months I made three more beers: Oktoberfest, Irish Stout, and IPA.  These were all TruBrew ingredient kits.  Each batch was better than the last, and as I became more comfortable with the brewing process I really started to enjoy doing it.  Not to mention giving someone a beer and telling them that you made it is friggin' sweet when you're in college.  At that points, my final season of college ultimate was in full swing and the brewing was put on the back burner (no pun intended).

  I moved to a new apartment, and when my brew partner, Clemente, returned from his one year stint abroad, he convinced me to go nuts with the brew.  We ordered three more kits: German Dark, California Common, and Double IPA.  For three weeks in a row we brewed. We probably would have done it every day if we could, but it takes a week to ferment and I didn't have enough bottles to hold all 15 gallons of beer. This also meant we needed to drink 50 bottles worth in 2 weeks time in order to make room for the third. That, of course, was less than a problem.  Let's be honest, I brew because I love brewing, but I don't hate drinking it. 

  After those batches Clemente and I decided to go rogue.  We abandoned the ingredient kits and started thinking outside of the box.  This is about the time that we decided we wanted to brew for a living. (He has since moved to LA to pursue a movie related career, but there is a spot reserved in my theoretical brewery shall he ever return).  We brainstormed some ideas, some great, some not so great, and came up with a Jalapeno Chocolate Stout.  Not surprisingly, this received mixed reviews.  Quite frankly, I'm still not sure if I liked it, but after three months of aging it showed a lot of potential.  Next up was the Mango Double IPA.  The original Double IPA was the best beer that we had made, so we decided to make that again, but add 6 lbs of mango.  As with every beer that we've made, we chose to go overboard instead of coming up short.  If I make that again I will probably decrease the mango and up the hops because it was a little sweet for my taste, but it was still delicious.  (And 10% is a pretty number).


  After the Mango Double IPA, I realized that the majority of the beers that I made are not great for the general public.  They taste great and people that like that type of beer love it, but if I'm going to open a brew pub I need to start appealing to everybody.  I decided at this point to actively start compiling a beer list for the pub.  With that in mind my most recent beer was a spiced pumpkin ale. I made it around Halloween and put real pumpkin in it.  This took the most work because I had to cook the pumpkin and make a spice tea on top of the usual brewing work.  With a few adjustments this will make a great addition to the seasonal beer list.

  For Christmas I received an 8 gallon brew pot.  I got an iphone 4s and the pot, and I still can't decide which gift I like more!  I plan on making the switch to all grain this week.  Up next: Coffee Porter.  In fact I am on my way to the homebrew store now.

Preface

Hi All,

   As I begin my first blogging experience I am going to go under the assumption that the majority all of the people reading this know me in some capacity.  That being the case I will save the unnecessary introductions of who I am, where I am from, a detailed list of my past romantic encounters, or anything of the like.  Instead I will simply introduce the purpose of this blog and give an idea of what I plan on writing* and why you should** waste your time reading my posts.
* subject to change without notice
** or shouldn't


   As the title and subsequent subtitle suggests I have some dream that I am trying to make come true, and unless I am completely illiterate and don't know how to spell 'happiness' it has something to do with...hoppy?  Yes, hoppy.  Hoppyness in this instance is referring to happiness and hops (it's a play on words).  Happiness is self explanatory. Hops, for those of you who do not know, are one of the four ingredients present in every beer ever made (more on that in future posts).  So what is this happy beer related dream?

  Before I spoil the surprise allow me to give some personal background to this whole saga.  I  have discovered over the past several years that there are two ways that I have been consistently able to make people happy, if only for a moment.  The first only comes when I am tutoring someone, specifically in Math.  The moment of happiness comes when a given person has been struggling with a new concept or problem for what feels like an eternity, and just before all hope is lost...it clicks!  That 'aha' moment.  The moment when all that was unclear makes perfect sense.  That discovery of understanding is something that I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to help many obtain.  Even if it is the understanding of something as seemingly unimportant as calculating an integral.  As you read this you are probably thinking, 'why the hell is this kid not a teacher?!'  The truth is I only recently realized how much I enjoy this aspect of teaching, and somewhere down the road I would not be surprised to find myself in front of a classroom.  But there is one other way that I have been able to put smiles on people's faces.  And I have a lot of fun doing it. This is the essence of this 'dream' I keep referring to.

   The other way I have been able to make people smile is by pouring them a pint of beer.  Not any beer, but a beer that they have never had before, and may never have again.  A beer that was made in a small two bedroom apartment on a half-sized stovetop.  A beer that fermented in a linen closet, and was bottled on the kitchen floor.  A beer that I made myself (or with the help of my esteemed partner, the one and only Christopher J Clemente).  But the joy comes not only from pouring them the beer, but also from the act of sitting down, relaxing, drinking, and talking.  The entire night of enjoying each other's company that all started with the beer that I brewed!  That is the happiness that I dream of offering to as many people as I can.  That is the happiness that I aspire to offer by opening my very own brew pub.

  So there it is.  My dream is to open a brew pub, serving beers that I have made myself, and giving people a night that leaves them smiling.

  So what exactly should you expect from this blog? As I see it now, my plan is to catalog the beers that I have made and plan on making, as well as give updates on their progress and such.  There is a lot of waiting that goes along with the brewing process, so I will probably fill time with interesting posts about brewing or reviews of new beers I have tried.  In the near future I will update you all on what I have done up to this point (for those who don't know I have been brewing for about 2 years now and have made ~15 different beers to date).

   I would love it if people shared beer/bar/pub suggestions or reviews.  And if you never read another post I write, that's cool too.

Comments are welcome, but if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.