this is a story about the fourth time in my life where i found myself profoundly happy. deeply, profoundly, happy, and satisfyingly fulfilled.
due to a slow growing frustration with store bought beer, i started homebrewing in october. aka – making my own at home. and let me tell you, the end result is deeply moving and has caused me to be profoundly happy for the fourth time in my 32 years. the preceding three occurrences aren’t important for the purposes are these discussions so we won’t get into those now. we’ll talk about how great you feel after successfully making your own beer at home. (not sure how it feels to do a local “brew your own” bar/grill type of place. and frankly, nor do i care.)
so homebrewing. the first thing to note is that it’s a very popular hobby. there are some very good forums online and they’re all stocked with all kinds of helpful tips and discussions around the process. and then there’s youtube. the youtube is also stocked with a number of instructional videos that really aided me personally. i was always into chemistry and i love to cook and as luck would have it, this is the perfect combination of those two things. yay.
while making your own beer is not difficult, it is a laborious, time consuming process. but as previously stated, it’s very fulfilling. i haven’t felt this way about a successful achievement in what might quite literally be ages. work achievements are “work” and really only serve to allow me to cross a line item off of someone else’s to-do list. (“the man”. the man’s to-do list.) this is much sweeter. this is your own personal, at will life achievement. basically two full days of activities coupled with weeks of aging and fermenting. the hardest part is truly the waiting. you have to wait about 6 weeks before you can sample your finished product. i find it frustrating that you could possibly labor for 2 days and then have to wait 6 weeks to then discover that your magic potion sucks. frownie face.
so on brew day, you boil your grains, malts, hops, etc in a large pot and then you store it in a very clean air tight 5 gallon container for 3 to 5 weeks. as per the waiting, you basically create your magical ale and then send it to a warm dark place for weeks. no peeking. no touching. no nothing. it’s very difficult to follow these rules, but you do it because you don’t want to jeopardize your baby’s progress.
at the three week mark, i chose to bottle it. (there are other options at the 3 week mark. i won’t get into those. they’re subjective and/or different depending on the type of beer.) the bottling is a second day of work, but at least you finally get to really see the beer, smell it, taste it a little. it’s not technically beer yet since it’s not fully aged and its not yet been carbonated. when bottling the beer, you add a simple syrup to the equation (sugar and water) and this carbonates the beer while it conditions in the bottles for another 3 weeks. (i went to bottles. you could also go to a keg. the keg cuts the wait time considerably because the keg can carbonate and condition the beer in only a few days. rf decided that she’s not ready to explore kegs just yet at this early stage in her brewing career.)
so here i am today, december 11th, 2011. i’m sipping my creation and it’s pretty darn great. first and foremost, it’s gorgeous. secondly, it smells amazing. thirdly, it’s fresh. fourthly, it’s just about the most balanced, mild, drinkable beer i’ve ever had.
this accomplishment seriously feels amazing. i don’t think there really are any accurate words to describe it.
