Craft Beers

Since 2011, I’ve been home-brewing craft beers.

I started with a Scottish Ale, American Amber, and a Porter, using Brewer’s Best kits in February 2011.

By March, I was using the Clone Brews book and mostly whole grains. Sunshine Wheat, Nut Brown Ale, Berry Wheat, and a Milk Stout.

For the Fall Collection 2011, I was fully shifted into ‘all grain’, and customizing my own recipes and started using BeerSmith software.

I have a Beer Logbook where I track my recipes, dates, beer stats, and feedback.  It’s a great look back at my history and a great resource for my future brews.

I usually brew 3-5 styles for the upcoming season, and then take a break for a few months.  At one point, I tried brewing every weekend, or every other weekend, but we couldn’t drink it fast enough, and the beer supply was over-flowing.  In addition, brewing often took the fun out of it for me.  I backed off to the seasonal plan, brewing 3-4 batches over about 2 weeks, and then taking a break to ENJOY my concoctions.

I continued brewing through mid-2017 when we finally left the Vistancia house in northwestern Phoenix. We lived for a year in an apartment which was not conducive to brewing, so I tried to sample as many new and creative brews as I could find in downtown Phoenix and the places we traveled.

In mid-2018, we left the US for Portugal, and I’ve not yet resumed brewing. I did bring along a few of my brewing tools, but I need to locate the ingredients and that’s not been possible yet. Instead, I’m continuing to taste as many of the new craft brews that Portugal has to offer, and found a few great multi-cultural brewpubs that carry many of my favs. I hope to resume brewing again soon.

As with most beer aficionados, I enjoy tasting many craft beers made around the country and around the world.