Full disclosure: I'm a pastor. Yeah, like, at a church. In particular, I'm a Lutheran pastor, and so beer kind of comes with the territory. ( Check out this NPR article if you want to read into that. ) The reason I lay this out there is pastors usually have a lot on their mind. And for me, what has been on my mind a lot lately is community. Churches used to be the center of the community. It was where one went to socialize and see friends on a regular basis. People would ask how your mother was doing. You could be fed on multiple levels: literally with pot-lucks, spiritually with worship, socially by being with those in your community. It's not news that the Church's central place in the community has slipped from what it was just a few decades ago. There are lots of reasons for this, but that's another post for another time. But even for those who do participate in worship on regular occasion, rarely does sitting in a church for an hour enhance community amo

Can you dust off an old blog? I feel like I'm pulling a favorite book off my shelf - noticing the slightly worn jacket cover, hearing the creak of the spine as I open it again. It's been a while. A lot of things took me away from writing this blog. We can summarize it as "a season of life." Kids. A move. Wanting to do a good job in my new position. Blogging about homebrewed beer didn't really fit into that. But now, I'm in a different season. I still have the kids. And live in the same city. And the same job, like I have for the past five years. I don't see any of that changing. But something has been stirred in me to pick writing this blog back up - but pick it up with a different slant. Previously, this blog focused on the first half of the name: homebrewing. I wrote about recipes, tips, and tasting notes on my beers. I thought it was fun, and I wanted to banter back and forth with others about all things homebrewing. I don't read about brewi

Several weeks back, I brewed up a German Wheat beer.  Well done wheats are one of my favorite sipping beers, and I felt this style would be perfect for summertime. Because I brew 10 gallons (a lot of one style of beer), I decided to split the batch by making two different beers off of one base.  Down the road, this will provide many options in terms of extra ingredients, varying dry hops, or even yeast options.  For this batch and for the next few I have planned out, I am going to keep one carboy true to the Reinheitsgebot, the German purity law , while the other I will "Americanize" by adding extra something to it. For the German Wheat, I kept one strict to the Reinheitsgebot with only water, grain, hops, and yeast.  The other, which I cleverly named German Wheat X, I dry hopped with one ounce each of orange and lemon zest as well as about 2/3s an ounce of Hallertau hops. Process As far as process, I simply used a single infusion mash at 152F.  There is always convers

Few things get me as excited as beer.  So, when I heard that Stone Brewing Company was planning to open an east coast brewery (#StoneEast), I got a little excited (being an east-coaster and all).  I got more excited when I read that Myrtle Beach, my current place of residence, was vying for Stone to open up here.  " Pipe dreams, " I thought.  Though, now it was in my brain.  I sooo wanted it to happen. Then I read this article on beerofsc.com  which made me give my hopes up entirely.  Apparently, SC law doesn't even allow for what Stone would want to do: a production brewery with a restaurant.   Nail in the coffin.  I still had hopes Stone would open up somewhere close, like in NC so I could at least visit. But then, some even-keel, open-minded politicians decided SC should change its laws!  By golly!  The result was H.3512 (ok, really, the 'Stone Bill' is an amendment to H.3512, but whatever. You get the point).  For a full rundown of what the "Stone Bi

Not what I mean when I say, "solo." My first South Carolina brew session is behind me. As I mentioned in my previous post, it was a solo brew.  This whole "brew by yourself" is a new thing for me.  While a typical brew day involves conversations over mash tuns and pints of beer over boil kettles, this one was a little different.  Ok, very different.  It was all up to me.  From hitting mash temps to sanitizing a plate chiller, it was all mine to do. "What's the big deal?" you may be asking.  "People do this solo brew thing all the time." Well, yeah, people do brew solo all the time.  But I think having a brew partner is a favorable thing - and it's something I am quite accustomed to. Sharing stories and beers is one of the best things about brewing with someone else.  But division of labor ain't bad either: one can monitor the boil-overs while another cleans the mash tun.  I knew that I wasn't going to have the luxury

It has been over a year since I last posted.  For anyone that is (or was) even remotely interested in this stuff, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting.  Life happens.  With a second baby and a move under my belt, I feel like I am finally at a place where I can pick blogging back up. And while I wasn't writing about it for the world wide web to view, I still brewed. I still thought about what to write. I still want to share my experiences in hopes that one of you can relate or maybe even learn a thing or two. Now, since I have moved away from my brew buddy, Eric, the whole brewing process is up to me.  That makes for longer, tougher, more lonely brew days, but it does open up blog post topics.  (Silver lining, I suppose.) So, going forward, expect to see posts about differences in solo and partner brewing. I'll still be brewin' up 10 gallon batches in two separate carboys, so that also opens up a lot of potential. And I am in a whole new area with a whole different br