mr_wibble
Beer Odd
So I've been here for, uh, a few years now.
I first turned up in 2009 looking for ginger beer recipes.
At the time I was working in Switzerland. During apple season the village farmers would bottle fresh juice in PET containers and sell it on the corners of their farms with honesty boxes. This stuff was called "" - we bought a couple of bottles, drank some fresh, but whacked the 2nd one in the fridge. In a couple of days it was carbonated, then later it de-sweetened, slowly turning into cider.
It reminded me of making ginger beer with a "plant" (growing yeast off suntana skins), and using it to carbonate ginger beer when we were kids. if I remember correctly, we got either gushers or bottle bombs. But sometimes, you might even get a little bit to drink. As a family that only ever got sweets and soft-drinks at birthday parties, it was a rare treat. I started making ginger beer by the crate-load.
We came back home in 2009. At our local Swiss train station there was a small, but ample, bottle shop with hundreds of different beers segregated by country. I was used to walking the aisles, and finding something new and unusual. We'd tried plenty of Belgian beers, some weirder German beers, plus a big mix of whatever took our fancy. Once back in Australia, it was an ill realisation that NSW (our part of it at least) was still the land of Tooheys New or Tooheys Old (plus a bunch of indifferent "cold-something" pale ales). As a serious lover of darker beers, something had to be done.
I started out with extract batches, reading "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing" every night, like it was a sutra. My first batch somehow didn't suck, (the 2nd one did), but after half-a-dozen or so I moved to all-grain after reading and reading and reading sage advice on on this forum.
Pots and tubes and fermenters came and went (like the hurried lover). Bottles gave way to kegs, kegs needed keezers, more kegs means bigger batches, bigger batches need bigger pots. Late last year I "finished" (nothing a homebrewer builds is ever complete) a system based on 185 litre pots - that kind-of put an end to the upgrades. I found an old diagram I had drawn recently - it layed out the steps and fittings required to put a false bottom into an esky. I laughed at myself, all I was doing was unscrewing a tap and putting in a filter with a couple of washers and seals - it didn't need planing. I don't pause for concern these days unless it's a tricky cut in stainless. Anything I need to know is always embedded with the wisdom somewhere on this forum.
I still love my dark beers, so I brew mostly porters and stouts. But reading this forum has led me to dabble a bit in the odd pale ale, British bitter, and especially wheat beers (a style where brewing satisfaction still alludes me). It's with the help of people like you, willing to offer their time and expertise, that I have become a competent brewer. I feel I'm yet to brew a perfect brew (although my oatmeal stout on nitro' comes close), but in every visit I always learn something new.
So to all of you, a big Thank You!
And if you'll have me, I'd like to hangout here for at least another 8 years.
cheers,
-Mr Wibble
I first turned up in 2009 looking for ginger beer recipes.
At the time I was working in Switzerland. During apple season the village farmers would bottle fresh juice in PET containers and sell it on the corners of their farms with honesty boxes. This stuff was called "" - we bought a couple of bottles, drank some fresh, but whacked the 2nd one in the fridge. In a couple of days it was carbonated, then later it de-sweetened, slowly turning into cider.
It reminded me of making ginger beer with a "plant" (growing yeast off suntana skins), and using it to carbonate ginger beer when we were kids. if I remember correctly, we got either gushers or bottle bombs. But sometimes, you might even get a little bit to drink. As a family that only ever got sweets and soft-drinks at birthday parties, it was a rare treat. I started making ginger beer by the crate-load.
We came back home in 2009. At our local Swiss train station there was a small, but ample, bottle shop with hundreds of different beers segregated by country. I was used to walking the aisles, and finding something new and unusual. We'd tried plenty of Belgian beers, some weirder German beers, plus a big mix of whatever took our fancy. Once back in Australia, it was an ill realisation that NSW (our part of it at least) was still the land of Tooheys New or Tooheys Old (plus a bunch of indifferent "cold-something" pale ales). As a serious lover of darker beers, something had to be done.
I started out with extract batches, reading "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing" every night, like it was a sutra. My first batch somehow didn't suck, (the 2nd one did), but after half-a-dozen or so I moved to all-grain after reading and reading and reading sage advice on on this forum.
Pots and tubes and fermenters came and went (like the hurried lover). Bottles gave way to kegs, kegs needed keezers, more kegs means bigger batches, bigger batches need bigger pots. Late last year I "finished" (nothing a homebrewer builds is ever complete) a system based on 185 litre pots - that kind-of put an end to the upgrades. I found an old diagram I had drawn recently - it layed out the steps and fittings required to put a false bottom into an esky. I laughed at myself, all I was doing was unscrewing a tap and putting in a filter with a couple of washers and seals - it didn't need planing. I don't pause for concern these days unless it's a tricky cut in stainless. Anything I need to know is always embedded with the wisdom somewhere on this forum.
I still love my dark beers, so I brew mostly porters and stouts. But reading this forum has led me to dabble a bit in the odd pale ale, British bitter, and especially wheat beers (a style where brewing satisfaction still alludes me). It's with the help of people like you, willing to offer their time and expertise, that I have become a competent brewer. I feel I'm yet to brew a perfect brew (although my oatmeal stout on nitro' comes close), but in every visit I always learn something new.
So to all of you, a big Thank You!
And if you'll have me, I'd like to hangout here for at least another 8 years.
cheers,
-Mr Wibble
Last edited by a moderator:
