Remember your first brew?

My first beer was a porter from the Complete Joy of Homebrewing probably in 2000, I drove up to Agway in Littleton NH to get supplies and ingredients. I had been watching and helping a few friends brew for a few months. My choice of recipe and ingredients(including molasses) were both questionable and while the results were drinkable it was far from a great beer. Bottling for the first time was also an adventure (my friends were exclusively kegging at that time).

 

I think I did an oaked English bitter or something like that from a kit. Turned out ok, but without oak. While I was steaming the oak chips like the directions said, I was so frenzied running around doing other things that I let the water run dry and it melted my colander into my pot.

 

Moose Drool brown ale based all grain brew that suffered greatly from unreduced acetaldehyde!

 

My first was a little more than a year ago, an extract hefeweisen. I stole the recipe from another thread on here. The first bottle was amazingly good and hooked me on making my own. The rest of the batch was a mix of over carbed and no carbed bottles. Oddly the under carbed bottles also had little flavor. I remade the batch recently and it came out much better.

 

A stovetop extract brew... orange peel pale ale that was terrible and over carbonated. BOTTLE BOMBS!!! hahaha

 

I've written about it before, but it was the summer of 1987, I think. My brother had given me a canned hopped extract kit, either John Bull or Coopers. It was a pale ale type kit. He gave it to me at least about a year before I brewed it. I used the little packet of yeast that came with it and an estimated kilogram of sugar because I didn't have a kitchen scale. I also didn't know much about sanitation, but I did try (and failed). I ended up with bottle infected messes that through a twist of fate were served at my grandmother's wake. Volcanic beer eruption ensued, and when everything settled down everyone politely pretended to like the taste. I felt about an inch tall. One of my cousins reminded me of this moment a few months back, incredulous that I continue to brew beer. All I can say is, it got better.

 

First one I ever made was an all-grain Fuller's ESB knock-off, and it was actually pretty fucking good. I kind of went into the hobby full bore, even had a corny keg and a CO2 tank, for the very first batch...

Forgot the irish moss, but had done enough reading here and at the Northern Brewer site to know that no, my beer wasn't ruined, but it never did really drop all the way bright...still tasted great.

 

My mom brought me back a few Coopers kits from Australia around 2000/2001, I never actually brewed them though.

 

I subsequently made a couple passable batches with canned kits (and a few poor ones), but I stopped brewing in the early 1990s or so. In 2005, I drank a Chimay Cinq Cents, wondered what the hell I was tasting, googled it, found Beer Advocate, poked around the forum, and a few guys who no longer post here convinced me that you could really brew good beer. That was over 100 batches ago.

 

My first batch one gallon of Everyday IPA kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop

3 days fermentation


Bottling the batch

 

yeah it was my first and only. Suppose to be an ipa but it turned into a lager. not to mention the rubber stopper slipped through into the carboy haha. It wasnt horrible actually but definitely not enjoyable haha

 

Ah, everyone remembers their first. Mine was not so good, brewed an IIPA out of rebellion because my Dad wouldn't brew one. Two years, lots of batches, dozens of books, and a week at UC Davis has changed things.

 

1991. I was working in a lab at UC Berkeley, and we collaborated regularly with a lab from UCSF. We met for lab meetings monthly, and Sierra Nevada and Henry Weinhardts were always present. No one had ever brewed, but we decided to have a lab home-brew challenge. The UCSF group brewed a stout, and we brewed a brown ale, both extract kits. We had a party to determine the winner, and I confess the stout was better, although neither was that great (surprise!). I'm closing in on batch 400 and still have and occasionally use the glass carboy from that first batch!

 

This thread should be a sticky note at the top of this forum page for all noobies to see and read (and learn from).

 

A fuggle hop ale extract kit that I bought with my starter kit from Midwest Supply & brewed on my stove top. I bottled it & drank every one in about 2 weeks. At the time, I thought it was the best beer I ever drank.

 

It was about 3 years ago and it was a True Brew Extract Kit - Red Ale. I bought it because I liked Killians.

...which is not a red ale

It turned out well, in fact good enough to encourage the habit.

 

My very first batch was a canned extract kit that was supposed to make a Duvel-like Belgian ale.

Not at all what I was hoping for, but the look on the shop owner's face when he tasted a bottle I brought in was priceless...

 

Yikes. Was that blow-off hose actually submerged in the wort, or is it an optical illusion?

 

You are a creative fellow!