Have any experienced brewers "started over?"

For various reasons, I went about 2.5 years without brewing - pretty much picked up where I left off, did an extract batch the first time to make it easy, then back in business! No problem. I still don't brew as frequently as many, though my volume is probably pretty respectable. My brewing is typically several months of no activity followed by a brief brewing frenzy followed by several months... always plenty of beer around though

 

that's all that matters, isn't it?
i've only been brewing for a year, and i just made the jump to all grain, but i've been considering doing a simple extract recipe of like an APA or something, just to make sure i have the fundamentals down. we're doing an ag kolsch this weekend but maybe after that i'll try "starting over"

 

I don't think I'd call this starting over, or even a point of regression. Hopefully you'll have fun with it and you're brewing beer. This is awesome! Who knows, you might learn something new or prevent a future problem from brewing extract.

 

Not really starting over, but every once in awhile, I'll do a back-to-the-basics recipe. This usually happens when I've brewed some different beers that didn't turn out so great, so I'll brew a very basic AG recipe that pretty much has little to no chance of being terrible.

 

I started over completely about 3 years ago, after about a 3 year hiatus. My brewing was not put on hold by choice. It was because that big bitch Katrina washed all my equipment away. And according to my wife, rebuilding a house and having somewhere to live is more important than homwbrew (I beg to differ). But eventually I got brewing again (extract, limited equipment, etc...) and now I have an even better set-up and do more brewing than ever. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

 

just to clarify, when i 'liked' this, i didn't like that katrina ruined your home, but that you got back into it.

 

I've taken a few hiatus', mainly when kids were newborns and also back when I was living a gypsy life after college. Also usually put the mash paddle down for the winter months as skiing and weather forecasting dominates my life.
Don't ever fall into the hype that brewing w/extract is an inferior form of brewing...you're brewing and hopefully will be enjoying the products. That's what's important in my book and extract brewing done right can just as easily produce award-winning beers as AG. I recently did an extract beer and it was one of the best experiences as I had a large group of friends over, people coming & going, kids running around and I could socialize and brew simultaneously...I can't seem to do that with all-grain brewing (read as "not great at multi-tasking"). I will 100% be doing more extract brewing moving forward.