In the beginning.....

Now that the first post is out the way i can expand a little on who i am and what i hope to achieve with this blog.

Firstly i'm a 41 year old Scottish guy who lives in the North East of Scotland. I'm married with two wonderful children whom i dote on(don't tell them though). I work in the offshore industry and as a result i have significant blocks of time at home and this allows me to indulge my hobby.

The hobby itself is All Grain brewing. I hope in this and future posts i can project some of the boundless enthusiasm i have for this hobby/sport/past time. If i'm really lucky the blog will achieve its goal of turning a few people away from the mass produced 'beer' foisted on them by the big players and onto the magic that is All Grain beer!

In my case, 'The pursuit of the perfect pint' started a few years ago in Germany where i was introduced to the stunning beers brewed in that fantastic country. I returned to Scotland took one taste of the 'average' pint on offer and decided i had to do something about this.From there i took the traditional step of buying a beer making kit or three and having a go.

While this is a good way to get started and to begin to wrap my head around the processes it leaves something to be desired and IMHO basic homebrew kits taste of being kits(more about the ABV than the taste). From there I rapidly accelerated through tweaking the kits with different hops and sugars and before i know it i found myself sculling around in the shallows of the clear but very deep pool of knowledge that is all grain brewing.

I'm getting ahead of myself slightly, my apologies. There was an interim step in the slippery slope that i found myself on and its name is 'Mini-Mash'. Its at this point that the unsuspecting brewer has his final but in my case unrecognised chance to turn back to the real world!

I say this as even with basic equipment(and i was using a watering can and black builders bucket as part of my gear at this stage) the brewer will find himself turning out a better pint than he can buy in his local!
I'll quicky explain that the mini mash is the basic addition to the homebrew kit of some malted barley which has been steeped in hot water and then the resulting sugared water has been drained off and added to the brewing kit, This will(with luck) add flavour and body to the beer that would otherwise not be there.

I am not intending this blog to be a 'How To' guide on brewing. For that i would suggest that you tread in mine and many others footsteps and register on the following site. There is more beer related wisdom on this site than you could shake a very large stick at!

http://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/

Yeah yeah but where's the beer i hear you ask? Well here's a picture of an early pint in my brewing life. It was cold, wet, tasted nice and after a couple the world was a very happy place AND it only cost about 25p to make!

I did not realise just how much time blogging takes so I'm going to sign off in a minute as i want to cook a pasta sauce.

At this point in my brewing timeline i've spent a few quid, made up a few kits. Tweaked some more kits and then found myself quite happy with the results but at the same time strangely dissatisfied. I'm still thinking about those German beers and i'm a long long way from their quality although by this point i have passed the mass produced UK standard. Next time we'll go full AG and have some proper fun!

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