Brewing beer

For his 30th birthday, I bought Robert a beer-making kit. That was in January, he has since been a beer-making machine, and I love it. I knew he would like making the beer because he's great at baking bread and baking bread is a science that uses yeast... and so is beer brewing so there is my logic. Also he loves beer. That was another big piece of my logic. 

We have a "Brew Store" in the town next to us. It's a big warehouse randomly sitting in a residential area, and I find it to be a very interesting place. I went with Robert on his last trip (and took lots of pictures like a beer-brewing tourist). Robert had his recipe and picked up specialty grain and hops and other whatnot and other required for making trappist (an ale that monks are known for making or something along those lines).

So the process is as follows: we make some beer tea by steeping the specialty grains (or at least I call it beer tea, it is not actually called beer tea), then we take this beer tea and put it in a big kettle in our backyard and pour in the rest of the malt.

Then we hang out and stir it until it comes to a boil (lots of steam steams up my glasses). Then we add our first hops, a little bit later we added sugar that tastes like rock candy (trust me, I tried it) and then more hops to finish it off. When that's all done, we cool it off, then we strain it into a bucket. Not pictured: adding some yeast and letting it sit for a while -- this one for at least a month. Then we have beer!

Robert made this beer once before, and it was so good I told him he had to make it again. The recipe can be found here in case you're a brewer yourself or interested in more specifics. I think it's great fun, and when you're done, you have beer! What's not to like?