"Of course I'd love to brew my own beer! How cool would that be?"Like many people, I have a friend that brews his own beer. Unlike many people, his beer is some of the best beer I've ever had. My wife noticed how much I liked his beer and how I kept asking him questions about it. She decided it might be fun for me to learn how to make beer myself.
Enter Mr. Beer.
For most people who are interested in making beer, a quick Google search will point to Mr. Beer as the best way to get started. Well, my wife purchased one for me for Christmas in 2012. I was ecstatic. If memory serves me right, it was a standard Pale Ale. I remember opening it up and seeing the different cans and bags and plastic bottles and having no idea what everything was used for, but being excited that with those items, I could BREW!
The day of brewing arrived. I read the instructions a few times to make sure I knew what I was doing (I didn't want to mess up my first batch of beer!). And so it began...
- I cleaned the "keg" (a plastic container with a plastic cap and plastic "tap" in which you ferment the beer)
Of course I was meticulous about my cleaning... - Boil some water
The anticipation begins to rise... - Remove the water from the heat and dump a can of syrupy liquid into the water
Ooo, that smells pretty good, and it has good color... - Pour that mixture into the plastic keg with some more cold water
Alright, I'm ready to really get into the process of brewing now... - Mix in the yeast
Ok...Ok...
...and that was it...wait, what?! I thought my friend said that brewing day took hours and it sounded so much more complex than this! I re-read the instructions to make sure I didn't miss anything. After I convinced myself that I was done, I put the keg in the basement and let it do its thing for the next few weeks.
During this time, I thought there was no way what I did was create beer. Now, I had no idea what I was actually doing with the kit or what the actual process of "making" beer was (since the instructions didn't really educate you on the process), so I figured there was a very good chance I did something wrong and that it was all a wasted effort. Once 3 weeks passed, I followed the last steps on the instructions:
- Pour some sugar into each of the 8 plastic bottles supplied
- Fill them from the tap of the keg
- Close the cap and wait another 2 weeks
There was no way I thought this was going to work. I didn't really do anything!
Then came the moment of truth: I took one of the bottles out of the fridge (having put them in the day before to get cold) and twisted the cap. Psshhhhhh. It was carbonated! It was magic! Seriously...like I said, I had no idea what was actually happening at this time, so it really seemed like magic! Ok, ok...so there are bubbles in there, but it can't actually be beer, can it?
I pour it into a glass, because drinking out of a plastic bottle just felt wrong, even if it was just Mr. Beer beer. It looked like beer; it smelled like beer; so I took a sip.
Now, have you ever created something -- art, music, sandcastles, whatever -- that when you finished it you were so proud of it, and it looked like the greatest thing ever to you. But then after a while, you looked back on it and realized how bad it truly was? That was this beer, but at the time, it was amazing. I drank the whole bottle, enjoying every sip, giggling like a school boy because I. Made. Beer. It was so cool.
I was so happy and my wife noticed how much I enjoyed the fruits of my "labor" (she doesn't like beer, so that enjoyment was lost on her), so she decided she would encourage my new hobby...but that's the next chapter in this story.
YIELD: 1 gallon
COST: \$45 (\$5.63 per pint)
REVIEW: BEST. BEER. EVER. Simply because I made it!
TOTAL BREWS: 1
CUMULATIVE YIELD: 1 gallon
CUMULATIVE COST: \$45 (\$5.63 per pint)
No comments :
Post a Comment