Welcome to Rick & Berta's spizzle ;)

      Seeing as how I am the one writing this blog how about we start with a bit of background about me as it pertainsto beer.  I have for many years derived great enjoyment from drinking beer even the big box beer that everyone has consumed and many prefer.  Fortunately in the 90’s I was introduced to red ale and I was still young enough that I didn’thave any preconceived ideas of what beer should be.  After that taste of red ale all that previous stuff I drank was renamed to swill in my mind. I honestly don’t remember what it was and I doubt it was a particularly good red ale.  Needless to say the seed was planted in my head of what beer could be after only one gulp of that amber malty delicious beer.  Many years later andhaving tried every different kind of beer I could get my hands on I started seriously considering making my own beer. The tipping point so to speak was a one two combination of a friend of afriend’s fantastic home brew, yes, that’s you Mr. white shoes J , and watching the HAMS folks make three different batches (extract, extract + grain and all grain) on the same day I was convinced.   Watching the process and talking with the good folks there I realize that this is not a terribly difficult process.  In fact it looked ridiculously easy.  I can boil ingredients and I can follow directions so I should be able to make beer.  And so the adventure begins…

      Like any good student I figured I needed to read up on the subject first.  Open mobile book store, locate beer making book, purchase and read.  Done!  Ok so it took me a while to get through the book.  I did find one item particularly fascinating.  Water about 95% of yourbeer is water and like a newbie it was the ingredient was wasn’t focused on atall.  Apparently, and you Bourbon drinkers out there will appreciate this, it can quite literally be all aboutthe water.  Different mineral content can produce different flavors.  Water with too much chloramine or chlorine can kill the yeast which leaves you with a batch of sterile super sweet wort.  As Alton Brown would say, “That is not good eats.” I would highly recommend that you buy a book.  There is a lot of great information and valuabletips in them.   Personally I just grabbed the one with the most positive reviews and was directed at the newbie audience like myself.  If you don’t want to buy abook there is this thing called the internet and has professor Google, whoknows everything.  You should definitely read up on the subject and talk to your local home brewer’s association members before buying any equipment.  Equipment will be the next blog entry to spring forth from my wee little brain.  Yea, I know just get to the beer already.  Patience grasshopper.