The adventure in homebrewing began immediately following Super Bowl XXIV (1990) when the San Francisco 49ners beat the pants off the Denver Broncos in a ridiculously lopsided 55-10 win: My beer buddy shared an impressive Belgain-style homebrew of his during the game, and the next day he taught me how to make a basic pale ale using extract malt.
We drove to this little odd shop in Morgan Hill that sold coffee, tea, spices, kitchen knickknacks, and beer & wine supplies + deli sandwiches. The gal that ran the place was very nice; we gave her the recipe and she proceed to fill our bucket with slow-moving liquid malt extract. She asked if we wanted a beer & a sandwich while we waited for this process and we did. After about 10 or 15 minutes, she says "how many pounds of malt did you want?" And my pal says "five", and as she cuts off the flow with a knife and weighed it, she said "well, you got six". Such was the accuracy in that day – 😃. I will never forget the first time I took in the wonderful aroma of malt boiling; it had me salivating in anticipation and made hungry to want of more.
A month later I would try to do this on my own, solo. Today I know that first batch was horribly flawed, but still liked and shared it. I persisted and in two years was making pretty good-tasting beer that everyone could enjoy mainly by doing a lot of reading, upgrading to better equipment, and perfecting my skill. Teaching other people also helped to focus communication on what is most important: start with a good recipe, use quality ingredients, attention to sterilization and cleanliness, fostering a stable brewing environment, avoiding oxidation, and careful handling of the finished product.
I went through several phases of brewing equipment as well, learning in the hard way what not to use, such as eliminating beer from contact with wood and plastic elements wherever possible because they provide safe harbor for bacteria. By the time I moved to Redmond in 1993 my second 3-tier RIMS (Recirculated Infusion Mash System) was already designed, based on ½ barrel starting capacity, and could easily output 13 gallons in about 4 hours with a double-batch following after just 90 minutes if one was so inclined. Between 1990 and 1996 over 100 batches were brewed and recorded, the majority in concert with friends.
Some recipes went terribly sideways, like trying to make an "Apple Beer": The first time, I used real apples, pureed and added into the plastic fermenter. Three days later little white rods are flowing in the thickened mass and the stench was most unpleasant. I called my Uncle for advice; he said "bring it up here and we'll distill it" but there was no way I'd risk spilling this in the car; I'd have to torch it to rid the smell. Instead, I poured it down the storm drain – and the neighbors complained. Lesson learned: Always pasteurize your fruit! 😃
The next time I used an Apple Extract – which caused horrible gushing and foaming, and had developed odd other faults. Lesson learned: Don't trust extracted flavors; better to use real fruit. The third and final time, we made an apple beer using real pasteurized fruit, but again we had the foamy problem plus cidery off-flavor (caused by too much fruit in the recipe). Coincidentally we had also made a "Spruce Beer" using fresh new spring growth, but we added too much and the beer tasted like Pepsi. One of my pals who had no sense of palate whatsoever but was always ready to acquire any free beer we were willing to dispose of – took on a lark a pint glass and blended the flawed Apple and Spruce beers together, and the admix was very drinkable… who would have thunk?
On the flip-side, there was one recipe that had entirely vexed me during the production and I was certain it would become my greatest failure. I was trying to replicate a German-Style Weißbier by using decoction: A portion of the mash is cooked separately then added back to the main mash in order to raise the temperature and facilitate faster conversion. Wheat malt in particular is low in enzymatic power compared to barley malt, and decoction is the way the ancients have been forcing conversion of starch to sugar for centuries. In my process on this day, I had first pulled ¼ liquid and boiled it, but it didn't raise the temperature enough, so I took ¼ grist from the mash and cooked that but it too did not raise the temp sufficiently. I did this two-step method 2 more times (liquid then grist) before the thing had come out where I wanted it after a marathon of 9 hours. I was completely exhausted. Into the fermenter it goes without much hope, and later I kegged it off and set it into the back of the fridge. Weeks, perhaps months go by and I rediscover this beer and pour a pint for myself and my Brother-in-Law: It was crystal clear, brilliant golden-pale, with a persistent white rocky head and lace. My BnL who mainly drinks only Bud or Coors was blown away! It came out as one of the top five beers I have ever made, but sadly there was only 5 gallons of it.
People ask me what is my favorite style and I always answer: "All of them". There is one though that I like to make most often because so many commercial brewers don't know how to make it right, and that's (as you might guess) Fruit Beer. I like to make a low-gravity low-alcohol (about 5% abv) wheat beer, let that ferment to about ¾ of the way through, then rack that onto a fruit base, such as Blackberry, Marionberry, Lingonberry, Cherry, and Raspberry. The alcohol gain is about ½% but that's not the point: I just like a nice refreshing session beer for the summer and fruit beers do it for me. The trick though is you must use fresh fruit and not be too stingy about it. The wheat base provides a nice body without being too thin or chewy, plus the hops are managed low so we can enjoy the real fruit bouquet. My other fermenting predilection is New England-style Cider but that's another topic altogether!