My husband has spent almost all of our married life educating me on the distinct tastes and textures of craft beers. An avid home brewer for many years he has perfected many a batch in his little outdoor brewing studio with carefully selected recipes from Dan at Dan’s Homebrewing. I have gone from an occassional beer drinker without much knowledge of the complexities of this age old beverage to knowing what I like and when. My current choices are rich in flavour and not always for the casual drinker.
This past Christmas I decided to take his beer up a notch not just to increase my husband’s brewing experience but to increase my own tasting pleasure. Up until recently he brewed batches based on already comprised recipes that many homebrewers could easily succeed at. These would still take many hours to get started, but only used one boiler pot and were much easier to manage.
He has talked about whole grain brewing for years and after many secret discussions with an old friend and a trip down to Dan’s I picked up the extra gear he would need to enter into the world of all-grain brewing.
Now, I do know the general steps involved, but I will not even attempt to explain his methods. In the past few months he has counselled two intrepid newbies into the world of homebrewing with hands on instructions and use of his little outdoor studio. I am trying to convince him to take this aspect of his craft a little more seriously with a blog of his own and (lightly) advertised services. He has one more ‘pupil’ waiting to get a new batch going soon. His payment is a sampling of the beer brewed which goes to show his commitment to the craft.
Inspiration for the task at hand. Howe Sound Brewing is a most excellent local brewery with many of my favourites on hand.
For all grain beer a most sophisticated system is necessary with a double boiler a must and mashtun to maintain and cool the mixture. I will add a disclaimer here that I am not in any way attempting to educate as I do not have any experience myself. I was just enjoying taking photos of my husband’s first attempts at all-grain brewing.
Adding the hops!
Yum!
Texting fellow homebrewer with exciting updates of his progress!
The happy face of homebrewing.
With Vancouver Craft Beer Week approaching it will be another chance for more inspiration and to see how even a small operation like this can one day lead to greater things. Now that Beer Master T is on his to brewing all-grain his dream of his own brewery may just happen.
Last year we headed down to Portland to experience a few days of cycling and beer tasting and I highly recommend not only a trip to Portland, but to have such a lofty goal in place. Touring the city with microbrews on our minds made for unique perspective on a very cool city.
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