2014 Recap

After a year-long drought, this blog is in desperate need of updates and shiny new content!

While I haven’t been posting, I did make some beer in 2014! My plan is to post some highlights throughout the first half of 2015.

Outside the SHPB, I had a big year in 2014. Here is the executive summary:

We bought a home in Saint Louis and are settled. I set up shop quickly; the basement is already littered with containers of sour, funky SCIENCE.

I joined the STL Hops Homebrew Club, a small group making a LOT of great beer! The club served beer at several festivals throughout the year; a new and exciting experience for me. Festival season is coming up again, and I intend to post our serving schedule and (more importantly) recaps with plenty of pictures!

Homebrew club meetings, festivals, bottle shares, and beer releases have given me more opportunities than ever to share my beer. I upgraded my equipment and doubled my batch size (now 10 gallons) to keep up! More importantly, I've been using the additional wort to conduct yeast experiments and make more sour beer!

I attended the 2014 National Homebrewers Conference along with six other STL Hops members. We had a blast! We brought a TON of great beer to pour at the Expo and on Club Night, including a split batch experiment with new hop varietals and some fantastic fruited Berliners. My keg of Gueuze was a big hit on Club Night. It vanished in about 45 minutes, but not before earning some press from Basic Brewing Radio and praise from The Mad Fermentationist, Mike Tonsmire!

Finally, for our second anniversary, my wife and I traveled to London and Brussels. I came back brimming with inspiration, life experiences, and a few liquid souvenirs. I’ll share a recap (and lots of pictures) in an upcoming post.

Thanks for sticking around! Hopefully in 2015 I can offer some insight, inspiration, or at least some new “what not to do’s”!

Let’s get to it!