Welcome to my Blog

I've been homebrewing for coming up on 6 years now. I started in Ohio, diving pretty much straight into all-grain (a very passionate mistake!). I had a lot of fun brewing in Ohio, brewing outdoors a lot of the time with friends, hosting parties, etc. Then I moved to NYC in the summer of 2005.

From a homebrewing perspective, it was tough to adjust to the move to NYC. The apartment was smaller, no basement to ferment cool, no backyard. The first brew I did, I ripped all the bottom shelves and drawers out of our refrigerator and brewed a lager. It quickly became apparent that I would need fermentation temperature control and SPACE. I bought a small deep freezer, added a wooden collar to extend the height, a thermostat, and added some taps. This is now my combination kegerator/ fermenting chamber.

I joined the NYC Homebrewers Guild about 2 years ago, after being attracted by the BJCP classes they were offering at the time. The first year, 14 of us took the test and I think about 10 passed. I passed and have been judging homebrew comps when I can. I also helped teach the BJCP classes last year.

I also served as the NYCHG Vice President last year and took over this year as the President. And, along with a group of contributors, I'm coordinating our second annual homebrew competition, which will take place on February 10th 2008.

I used to have a brew log on brewcommune.com, but this was somehow wiped along with all the other blogs. Doh! luckily I still have all the Promash recipes. I'm not going to try and repost all that stuff, but I am going to start fresh here (or only backtrack a month or 2).

My brewing interest is mainly focused on what I like to drink, and formulating my own recipes while relying heavily on proven recipes and techniques. I try to brew mainly to style, every once in a while, diverging off on an inspired and creative recipe.

Thanks for checking it out, recipes, pics, and annecdotes to follow!
Sean