So How Many People Do You Know Who Brew?

[Interloper]

I went to a bbq on Saturday arvo with people from my girlfriend's work. I had several longies of various homebrew under my arm and when I got there I found there were already quite a few "cleanskin" longies already in the esky...."Hello" I thought to myself "There's a homebrewer in the house".

As the afternoon progressed it turned out there were 4 other guys who were homebrewers at the party who all showed up with homebrews. This is a first for me - I have never been to a gathering like that and found so many brewers in one spot.

One was an AG dude, one was a kits & bits maestro (like my good self - ahem! ) and the other two were Kits & Kilo brewers.

Needless to say the next 4 hours were pretty much non stop conversations about steeping and hops and yeast and invert sugars and extracts and grain and malts and bottles and sterilising and priming and....oh well you get the picture.

Just wondering how often people meet other brewers at social gatherings? I have one other brewer where I work, but I've never been to a place with 5 of us homebrewers just randomly showing up without it being an organised brew function. I just don't come across brewers in the real world - it's all about the forum baby!

Oh for the record my raspberry cider was the clear winner. (1kg Raspberries, 100gms Malt, 4litres apple juice, 1kg dex, Blackrock Cider goo) I even wrote down the recipe and instructions - hard to do after a few of these badboys (ABV 7.5%)

I tried a nice Pale Ale from one of the other guys, but the other brews where a bit...meh! Too much sucrose, not enough hops. I figure the k&k guys learnt a lot from the more experienced amongst us as we espoused the use of better hops, yeasts and to STOP USING TABLE SUGAR!

So do you know many brewers? Or are you "That Guy" when you go to a party? The only one with a heap of homebrew that ends up converting people all night?

 

[captaincleanoff]

i'm "that guy"! Don't know anyone else..

 

[pokolbinguy]

Yep unfortunately basically none of the people of socialise with brew. One of my mates was brewing, quite alot, he actually got me into it. Him and his best mate decided to go all out and buy 2 or 3 brewing kits with all the gear (a coopers and tooheys) and they got stuck in real fast. I think not long after that they had about 500 long necks full......however it didn't all get consumed because some where a bit worse for wear.

Anyway them starting got me thinking and I wiped out my dad and brothers old kits and got going...haven't really stopped since and that was about 3-4 years ago.

So unless those guys are at the party or where ever homebrew seems to get put on the back boiler....unless of course the party is at my house and then it becomes the main attraction.

Pok

 

[raven19]

My best mate used to make it, now he just buys commercial beers.
Two mates from cricket make K&K
Apart from that not too many others, a few friends have dabbled in it but lost interest.

I on the other hand am becoming more and more obsessed!
Cheers :lol:

 

[Interloper]

Apart from that not too many others, a few friends have dabbled in it but lost interest.

This is really common. Once we get started on homebrew talk (which some how always happens when I am around with a heap of homebrew longies!) I often hear "Oh I used to brew years ago, but it wasn't very good so I stopped"

I will then follow with "Still got your fermenter?.... Can I have it?"

 

[Ol'Wobbly]

Where I work there are 2 other HB'ers among about 200 staff. When I take my 3 longnecks to a BBQ the general impression among the other blokes is one of polite indifference. When I've offered them a taste you can just hear them thinking "I'm not drinking that sh*t". Meanwhile, they drink their Pale Ale (not that there's anything wrong with that) and spend about 20-30 bucks during the night, while the cost of my HB is around $2.

There's an awful lot of prejudice out there against HB by the unititiated.

 

[Interloper]

[quote name='Ol'Wobbly' post='371981' date='Nov 4 2008, 10:15 AM']Where I work there are 2 other HB'ers among about 200 staff. When I take my 3 longnecks to a BBQ the general impression among the other blokes is one of polite indifference. When I've offered them a taste you can just hear them thinking "I'm not drinking that sh*t". Meanwhile, they drink their Pale Ale (not that there's anything wrong with that) and spend about 20-30 bucks during the night, while the cost of my HB is around $2.

There's an awful lot of prejudice out there against HB by the unititiated.[/quote]

Wow that's quite different to my experience - normally the punters line up to try some HB. I always take extra as people tend to get a bit excited when they see HB on offer.

 

[flattop]

I used to brew in the 90's K&K only and gave it away (used mostly sugar) the results were really, really poor, i think i made about 5 batches thinking it would improve....
My mate started about the same time as me and he moved to dex and malt, I moved into a townhouse for a few years interstate and got rid of my gear because the new place was too small. (my mate is now running a reflux still also)
Finally moved back to Melbourne and got a larger place and a lager place (sorry). Tasted one of my mates brews and said "mine never tasted like that"!
He is strictly K&K but he uses the 3k ESB kits which are hopped (you can see the chunks in it) and have a decent taste.
Although i only just got back into it a few weeks ago i have 4 brews in various stages, One bottled, one racking, two fermenting.
The first 2 i did by the book, but i started reading up really fast and already by the 3rd i changed the LME/dex ratio and now i am looking at dry hopping and partial mashing in the next few brews.
My problem is not enough gear (fermenters and bottles) to get it all under way at once i want to bottle as much as i can before the summer temps make brewing too hard.
I also have 5 ppl coming to stay over 3 weeks of summer so the house will be too crowded to have all the fermenters on the bar (and my mate is a decent drinker so i need a stockpile).
In short i've gone nuts....

So in two weeks i have
Cerveza bottled
ESB Wheat racking
Coopers Brown ale dex malt maply syrup fermenting
Cooper lager with residue wheat yeast cake from ESB kit fermenting
To do list
Another wheat with yeast cake from ESB
Adelscott clone partial mash
Pilsner
Apple cider
Ginger beer
I have 4 more cans of Brown ale to use (maye a tucan coming up)

Short answer i know 2 other ppl brewing

 

[mfdu]

a mate of mine started me off once he got his coopers kit last christmas - i'd had plenty of homebrew at uni in the 90's but hadn't thought of it since.

funny, since i'm such a DIY guy - grow my vegies, build my own recording equipment . . .

i ended up getting most of my street tanked on HB a few weeks ago - we polished off about 16 longies in an afternoon in the sun. ooh my head hurt.

four guys in my street brew (or used to) - the old codger across the road has about 40 dozen longies in his shed and does everything from ginger beer to wine.

but the attitude towards HB amongst some old chums is "geez you are cheap - why don't you buy some good beer instead"
to which, i fip them the bird and crack another longie.

mfdu

 

[PostModern]

I have a couple brewing mates who occasionally post on here, but they live in Sydney. Generally tho in local social events, I'm the only one who brings good beer. My 3L swingtop is a familiar sight at BBQs round here.

EDIT: Excluding IBU events of course. I didn't count them as I met them thru AHB.

 

[Katherine]

I know plenty through AHB so I wont count them.

But there is my father (the original K&K), 4 brewers that I know of in my work place. One all grain, one k&K and 2 extracts.

 

[cdbrown]

My mates and I used to brew together back in uni, but then jobs, wives and travel changed all that. While I was living in London, some of those guys started using the services at U-Brew-It which is an expensive way to start, but produced excellent results so now fairly regularly to make a brew or two. So they aren't technically homebrewers (shopbrewers?) but it's the closest I've got.

 

[monkeybusiness]

I play social poker with about half a dozen guys and girls and only one doesn't brew. They are all K&K brewers but they do like the taste of my AG and kits and bits enough to be expressing some interest in something beyond white sugar. About 4 months ago I gave the more interested ones a 100g of cracked crystal (referred to as chicken food) with some directions on how to steep it and they still haven't used it yet! Arrrgh! Everyone has different levels of passion.

I even did an AG while we were playing poker at my place one night, but that might have scared them off AG for a while.... h34r:

 

[wakkatoo]

Old man used to but stopped years ago. When I started I was the only one I knew of. Got married, kept brewing, bumped into best man about 12 months later and found he had got into it. Been living in seperate states but next year will be about an hour away so we have plans to combine resources (and brewdays!).

I've been 'that guy'. You do impress others when you turn up with 19l of beer to a party and want no money for it. All the boys who spent $80+ on a slab of alcopops turn a little green when I tell them how much my keg cost to make :lol: Doesn't worry me at all if people stick to their Corona's and stick their nose up at the homebrew. All the more for me really
Been able to convert a few and got asked the other day if I could make a couple of kegs for a mates family christmas 'do.

 

[3GumsBrewing]

I am "that guy".
Too many times have I heard the question. "yeah, it tastes nice, but can you make VB/New/Carlton". Queue me grumbling to SWMBO about her/my friends/work people for the rest of the day.

 

[Interloper]

...Queue me grumbling to SWMBO about her/my friends/work people for the rest of the day.

I hear you.... Other than this bbq on Saturday I am usually heard saying "What is it with your friends and their crappy taste in beer?".

Hey we live in SA and Pale Ale is the price of most megaswill so why wouldn't you drink Coopers rather than that muck...

 

[Pennywise]

I know of 8049 HB'ers, but only met one, myslef :lol:

 

[mynameisrodney]

I have one other mate that homebrews but thats it. I was at a BBQ on Saturday night with a full esky and everyone was saying "Eww homebrew" and crap like that. so i kept making people try it and the response was always the same, raising the bottle to their mouths with a screwed up look on their face, then a surprised "oh, that actually tastes pretty good".

 

[Interloper]

I have one other mate that homebrews but thats it. I was at a BBQ on Saturday night with a full esky and everyone was saying "Eww homebrew" and crap like that. so i kept making people try it and the response was always the same, raising the bottle to their mouths with a screwed up look on their face, then a surprised "oh, that actually tastes pretty good".

What was the brew?

 

[Pollux]

I was at a BBQ on Sunday, actually a 1st birthday for my daughters friend, either way turns out said child's dad has started to dabble in HB.....

He pulls a few coopers PETS out from the garage and turfs them in the esky for a bit, upon pouring I got confused as to whether it was beer or coke....
Turns out one of the other dads there is a HBer too, so we stand around the BBQ chatting about why this beer has no head after over 5 months in the bottle, it was carbed, but headless...

Then the words were heard "I used the coopers brewing sugar, that's the best one yeah??"

Think I'll invite him round this weekend for my first all malt brew with steeped grains and hops.....See if I can steer him in a better direction....