Hello
We're just two guys who enjoy great beers.....
We started brewing in January, 1999. We’re both college students from Anaheim, California.
Roy is into brewing mead and wine, and grows hops. I am trying to brew the perfect pale ale.
Stein
Fillers, in Long Beach, CA is our favorite brew shop because Don Van Valkenburg offers great advice, free brewing
classes, and is happy to help beginning brewers.
Since
we started in January, we have brewed either five or ten
gallons per week. We had a
couple of setbacks due to poor sanitation, but careful attention to cleanliness got us
back on track to brewing beers our friends beg for more of.
Here's a picture of Roy pouring the wort though the fine filter to remove particles of hop, and other sediment. In the background you can see a six-gallon fermentation bucket in use, and our homebrews we had to set down for a minute.
Ahhh, the rewards of this hobby!!! You can see fermenters on the left and towards the back of the picture. I'm holding a fresh India Pale Ale, yeah.... The best part of brewing is sharing fresh beer with family and friends.
I
had a brewing article published in the Daily Titan, my school’s
newspaper. Click here
to check it out.
Here's a story of the first time I tried a home brew. (Hats of to Doug Stone)
The first time I had a homebrew was with my biology lab professor.
I was in biology class when my teacher started rambling on about anaerobic respiration, the process of yeast eating sugars producing co2, water, and alcohol. Cool. Later in lab my professor, Doug Stone, mentioned fermentation again.
My buddy Kevin had a homebrew kit he got at a department store but the beer it produced was terrible, in fact some of the caps shot of the bottle so violently that on person was actually cut right under the eye by a shooting cap!
My professor continues and mentions that he brews his own beer. I told him about my interest in brewing but I didn't think I could brew great tasting beers. I gave him one of the beers I made, he critiqued it and said it was close to it's style, but could use some work.
Dr. Stone offered to take my friend Chris and I out to a nearby park and sample some of his creations. We immediately accepted his invitation. Later, we met him at the park where he had a small cooler, some cups and a old journal. He asked us if we were both 21, and we said yes (Chris wasn't at the time, but who could pass up an opportunity like this?). He looked around -- as if to make sure no cops were coming -- and pulled out the first bottle. We sipped and were amazed, claiming it to be the best beer we had ever tasted. Then the next one was awesome, the next just as good. We sampled about nine beers, caught a nice buzz and had a few laughs.
We went away with a new appreciation for homebrewing, knowledge about the science of brewing, and inspiration to be able to make the same kind of quality beers.
Needless to say, we both got A's in the class. Thank you Doug, wherever you are.