Simple Beer Techniques

Went downstairs to the basement today and re-discovered an "ancient artifact" of my early beer brewing days. The rootbeer barreled, spigoted, Mr. Beer brewing vessel. Geesh, I haven't used that thing for about 4 years, and that was to make rootbeer soda, but it did bring back the memories of those first attempts at homebrewing.

I received this piece of equipment as a 2000 Christmas present. Something that I had wanted for several years but never got around to buy one. I did try making beer in the early 80's but that was one major disaster. Much easier at the time to just go buy a case of beer (around 5 bucks) then it was to make.Well, anyways, I opened that present and began to read the instructions. Boy, was this going to be easy. Add some water, the canned ingredients, some yeast and voila, beer. That first batch turned out to be drinkable, but was no where near the level of a good beer.

So, I scrounged around bookstores and library to find so books about homebrewing. The best one that I found was "Hombrewing For Dummies." Real simple book and easy to read. Has all kinds of tips on improving my beer along with the tons of basic information.

So, I went back to using Mr. Beer for about 6 months, but with better results. The beauty of using Mr. Beer is that you make small batches, so you get a lot of practice. I usually advise anyone that is starting out to go this route but I also tell them to buy cans of liquid malt extract along with hops and some specialty grains.

A good website for anyone just getting their feet wet is How To Brew . Check it out, it is really informative.