manticle
Standing up for the Aussie Bottler
+1
I was made very humble this weekend when I tried one of Manticles AG beers. Here's a guy that was completely determined to brew an AG on a very tight shoe string budget and set up what would have to be one of the most primative AG setups I have ever seen. There a thread here somewhere? His beer I have got to say was a lovely beer, no it wasn't gob smackingly great, but it was one of first AG's, but it made me humbled and proud of what he achieved with what he had at his hands. Mind you had he sent me 2 bottles I would have immediately gone and got the second bottle for a top up.
So brewery bling doesn't equal great beer and a good brewer regardless of his tools can still brew a good beer FULL STOP!
Now having said that I love my brewing toys and my brewery bling and that won't change. How I proportion or spend my hard earned is only my concern, yeah?
Thanks Chappo for the kind words. Hopefully it was at least goblickingly tasty.
Your passion will get you to do what you can with what you have. While my gear is very primitive, it's come about through being determined. Lots of people on here have amazing looking breweries - the thing that impresses me about a lot of them is that many components are actually DIY and built from scratch with bits they found at the local tip. It's just these guys can weld and so on and so forth (I have neither the means nor the skills to do so). Even those who buy their bits and pieces probably target something, save or at least budget for it and it's still a result of passion.
Give me a guy who doshes out for a shiny mash tun from beer belly or a march pump over someone who buys expensive garden statues just to show how rich they are any day of the week. The hobby/craft has people from all walks of life, ages, backgrounds and interests which is probably what I like most about it. I'm 33, poor, studying postgrad and into dark ambient/industrial music, art and collecting children's shoes and medical instruments but I can happily talk beer with a 55 year old, self made carpenter who likes drag racing and footy.
I use a cereal mill I got from ebay because it's all I could afford but someone else using a motorised let'scrushsixtonsofgrainatoncemeister is still another person who loves making beer (and presumably drinking it).