Home Brewing 101

As a beer enthusiast that has sampled over 2,000 beers throughout the world, I always thought of getting into the brewing process myself.  The popularity of brewing one's own beer for consumption amongst friends is always appealing, but normally people are hesitant to try someone's home brew because they must force out a fib to reassure the over joyed brewer that it is great.

Mix this phenomenon with the growing popularity of the Craft Beer Industry, for example the commercialized Alexander Keith's has recently just released it's hop series in an attempt to tap into craft beer hop lover's.  Is this working?  I would have to say that the Hallertau is outdoing the Cascade, mostly because Canadians like hoppy beer, but not hoppiness that is intrusive to their regular tastes.

Watching new breweries emerge throughout North America, finally destroying the international reputation that North American beer is terrible has been inspiring, while offering a variety of experimental brews that are great.  Granville Island, Dogfish Head, Rogue, Liberty, Dieu du Ciel, Howe Sound, New Belgium, Allagash and this is to name a very slim few.

I have always been interested in joining this wave of new brewers, so when instructing courses was finished last April, my brother and I one day decided to go to Wine Kitz and were convinced to finally purchase our first beer kit.  Excited, our first beer we brewed was a Wheat Beer, naturally starting with pre-made wort, but nonetheless we were extremely delicate to the process.  We poured the wart into the primary fermenter, sprinkled on the yeast and waited patiently for a week to allow the yeast to do it's business.  Next we siphoned the alcohol to the secondary fermenter and again waited 2 weeks for it to ferment storing it carefully in a darkened room at room temperature (meanwhile sanitizing like mad men). 

After this, we were ready to bottle, so we shifted the brew back to the primary fermenter and while adding sugar to the process, stirred nicely and then bottled.  At this point, the excitement builds as we let it sit for 4 weeks.  A real nice surprise awaited me as I came back from Sweden, John and I tasted the brew and low and behold it was impressive, but naturally we will find it okay, so we took it to the critics.

At around this time, the Cream Ale (second batch) was also ready, so we had many people sample the beer, harsh critics, people we knew and people we did not know and it went over extremely well, even having people they would buy it in a pub.  Therefore, we stepped it up and brewed an Oatmeal Double Stout and John and my Father sampled it on Father's day and again it was a success and even though it was pre-made wort, it was our first time and we succeeded.

At this point, we have also brewed a Cerveca and a Pilsner.  I move to Lethbridge a week ago and already the Galt Museum wants me to run a home brewing demonstration, also potentially sell my beer as locally Lethbridge.  In that case, the next journey is making my own wort and experimenting with new ingredients, so challenge accepted, when I finally purchase a new home, I am going to turn the basement into a brewery, very exciting things are happening on the brew front, so hopefully within a couple years, there will be a Pogo Brew Pub in Lethbridge haha.

Brewing is Awesome!!