A look back on my first year as a brewer.

Last year my New Years resolution was to brew beer.  My goal was seven batches which I eclipsed with my tenth batch; a Black IPA.   I have learned so much this past year! I've read several books and magazines dedicated to beer, visited several breweries both large and small and most importantly, talked to others who brew.  There is so much to know, so many variables to the process, that I feel like I'll spend a lifetime perfecting my recipes and process.

Here is a list of what I've learned my first year.

• Kits make great beer!  Someone put the time in to figuring out the right recipe, enjoy their hard work.
• Use the resources at your local homebrew store, those guys know a TON and like to share.
• Define what kind of brewer you are, what are you trying to accomplish.
• Water makes a difference, find out what kind of water you are brewing with, if you are using city water, ask your city water dept for the analysis for your town.  I found out our city water is terrible for light beers. The Palmer book explains water quality very well.
• Sometimes mistakes work to your benefit, sometimes they don't.
• Document, document, document..  If a batch turns out great, you'll want to repeat it.
• All-Grain brewing introduces 20x the complexity to the process over kit brewing.  If you want to really understand the process of brewing, make the switch, but be prepared to make some bad beer out of the shoot.
• Sometimes I like to keg, sometimes I like to bottle, bottles make it easy for sharing, kegs make for less of a cleanup effort.
• READ!  So many great sources of info out there.  I subscribed to 'DRAFT' and 'Brew Your Own Beer' magazines this year.  Lots of great info, seemed that every article in BYoB had some nugget of info for me.
• Don't fear a style you might not normally like.  Brew it all!
• Don't fear a Lager, all you need is someplace cool to store it for a while.  If you live in the midwest, it's easy to find!
• Get organized.  Know where your stuff is.  Create a standard way of logging notes.
• Clean up before putting your stuff away!  When it comes time to brew, you don't want to scrub trub from your fermenter or dried hop residue from your brew pot!
• Get creative, buy a 3 gallon fermenter and play with a few gallons of your beer!  I've added pears, nuts, oranges and lemons to my 'play batch'.  Some have turned out wonderful, others, not so much.
• Be objective! You brewed it, so you're going to be biased, but sometimes bad beer is bad beer.  Don't take it as a failure, learn from it!
• If something went wrong, research the reasons!  you'll learn something.
• Involve others, invite friends over to brew, or to taste, they'll be your biggest fans.
• Set goals.  What are your plans for the upcoming year?  

Best of luck to you in the next year.  Happy brewing!