Curt & Kathy Stock 2006 Winners
They call me Uncle Foamy.
I've spent centuries teaching young fledgling brewer the fine art of fermentation. Eventually, the supply of adequately skilled students dried up. I blame that on the computer age: too many geeks spending their time with role playing games and porn sites.
The craft nearly died out until a young boy by the name of Kristen, in a drunken stupor induced by many shots of bad whiskey and gallons of hard cider, stumbled into the secret lair. After the would be rock stars and strippers pleaded with me not to kill him for trespassing on the sacred ground, I decided to teach him the fine art of brewing.
Kristen did not take to brewing as easily as he would lead you to believe. In fact he was the most difficult student in my many years of teaching. After many years, and multitudes of severe beatings, Kristen finally became somewhat adequate in the brewing art. It's good to hear that Kristen has honed his skills after departing the lair. We really didn't have much hope for him. Now that we've set that straight...
Curt and Kathy Stock started homebrewing in July of 1996. Their interest in homebrewing was sparked by friends and coworkers who brewed their own beer. About a year later Curt co-founded the Saint Paul Homebrewers Club with fellow brewers Gary Hipple and Scott Strand. In August 2003 Curt and Kathy started making mead in addition to beer, wine and cider. Curt was elected to the AHA Governing Committee in 2006 and is the current organizer of the Master's Championship of Amateur Brewing (MCAB).
There are many things a person can do to become a good brewer, but I think the biggest asset to any homebrewer is other homebrewers. Through interaction in clubs, internet forums, competitions and other venues, you can learn very valuable information from other people who share your interests.
There are of course a number of obvious things you can do to make good beer:
- Use good quality fresh ingredients (those 3 year old hops may save you a couple dollars but you could jeopardize the whole batch if you use them).
- Know your ingredients (it.s important to know how base malts, specialty grains, hops, water profile and yeast affect your final beverage).
- Research the beer style you plan to make (it.s hard to hit a style if you don.t know what you are brewing. Read about the style, taste commercial examples and review many recipes. Formulate a recipe and make changes in future batches until you are happy with the results).
- Become an expert with your brew system (you don.t have to have the best brew system on earth to make great beer. But you do have to know how to brew on it. Become familiar with your system so you can brew consistently with it. Pick a style you like, brew it once a month until you can duplicate the results consistently. Until you know your system, it.s very difficult to make changes to recipes and know what exactly changed the flavor . was it the different ingredients or was it the new mash tun, burner, pump, etc.).
- Invite a fellow brewer to brew with you (I.ve never not learned something when I.ve brewed with other brewers.).
- Practice. Enough said. More practice = More BEER!
