Lootcorp 3.0 is hosting this month’s Fermentation Friday, a last-Friday-of-the-month blogging event specially made for homebrew bloggers. This month’s topic: Brew Year’s Resolutions!

Ray and I began brewing June 7, 2008, and since then we have completed 8 brew days, with brew day #9 being this weekend. We’re not quite newbies, but we’re also not completely seasoned veterans, even if we did have our photo taken with Charlie Papazian.

We could resolve to become all-grain brewers and build a kegerator, but our condo just isn’t big enough, nor do we have a garage, basement, or even a lawn. Our balcony is not going to cut it. Those resolutions will have to wait until we move into a house, which just means we will need to resolve to work with what we’ve got.

This means that we resolve to try to brew as many different styles as possible. We also resolve to keep to our fairly regular schedule of brewing once a month — however, Ray and I have both agreed to a brewing hiatus for the months of October and November, since we’ll have the wedding coming ’round the bend. I resolve to brew with real fruit, and kick the fruit extract to the curb. I also resolve to calm down my overly ambitious recipes — not everyone can be Sam Calagione — and instead work on perfecting clean, balanced brews. Then I can get all crazy.

My turn.

Not to contradict my betrothed, but I resolve to incorporate some more adventurousness into my beer recipes this year. Since I believe in having metrics for these things, I specifically resolve to brew at least two beers that include ingredients other than common fruits (raspberries, apples, etc.), common spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, etc.), and the Big Four (malt, hops, yeast, and water). For example, a beer that uses rosemary would qualify.

I also resolve to read no fewer than two homebrewing books cover to cover this year, perhaps three. I figure that ought to make my first resolution easier to accomplish.

Finally, I resolve to marry the crap out of Mel.

Fermentation Friday, Homebrewing 3 Comments »