HOMEBREW: Fresh fermentations

I gave myself a lot of gifts for this birthday (organization: my first full set of matching tupperware, metro shelves, and bins and baskets, etc) but the best and most important one- permission to brew again. I am always fermenting something, but the last time I made beer was 2013, after a terrible breakup.

After that, I mostly put brewing in a box, because it was tightly entwined with that long relationship (the raw loft we lived in was basically a nanobrewery). I brewed a little before we met, but during, it was his show and like many things in that relationship, I mostly let it go out of fear of the constant criticism and not living up to the impossible standards there.

I won’t dissect that whole mess here, but it was a part of me I haven’t had time or space to unpack and revisit… Other than to feel guilty every time I look at the abandoned carboys in the basement (still full of a sad cider that is probably vinegar). But I missed it, and it was a practice that was mine before I lost it, or let it go. It’s time to reclaim it.

Starting with a couple meads (Samhain Spiced Small Mead & a Black Night Mead with elderberry, serviceberry, blackberry, raisin, and sumac, with black and blueberry honeys), and up next some hawthorn and crabapple wines, a peach melomel and peach wine, rose and rosehip metheglin, and BIAB all-grain beers (Mocktoberfest and Pumpkin beers first, then an Oatmeal Stout, a Vanilla Porter, and a Dunkel Rye). Ingredients are here and we’re going to start cranking them out.

🍻🍷 The Alewyfe is back! 🍷🍻