jtronson

Rewind a month or so ago, my daughter asks my wife, “Is your wine hoppy?” At that point I wonder if my passion for beer has gone too far?

Here is my personal path that led me into the wonderful rabbit hole of beer that I find myself completely obsessed with. First off if you don’t know me, I get a little obsessed with my “Hobbies”.

I really got into olives – I have made my own olives from my olive tree. I produced about 10 gallons of olives last year.

I built a huge raised-bed micro-farm in my backyard (including 50 corn plants and a giant watermelon patch).

I grew pickling Kirby cucumbers and made pickles in a quick brine. This is one of 5 jars:

I started a geeky meet up group surrounding the Raspberry Pi embedded circuit board that one can make cool things with.

So I am sorta all over the place. But the one thing in common is I like to make things myself – now they call it being a maker. Things I can touch and look at. I guess this is because I am a Java developer by day and I have nothing to touch, feel or taste at the end of the day. Also I really am a foodie if there was such a thing. I love to cook – here are my famous fish taco ingredients (the fish I caught myself):
photo 2(1)

I watched the original Iron Chef show when it was still only on the japanese channel and I had no idea exactly what the rules of the show were since everone was speaking japanese but I loved it. So much so I would record my favourite episodes on VHS so I could watch them over again (Pre-DVR days).

I am also really into wine. And so is my wife:

I have done a lot of wine tasting with my best partner in the world, Eve. Wine is always fun for us. As I have said I also love to cook. My family are all great cooks. My cousin has his own hipster Brooklyn establishment that is totally rockin it right now (“Bushwick in the MF House…”) My other cousin, Emma, writes for Squid Ink and yet another cousin is besties with (Yes Name Dropping) Jonathan Gold, everyone from Mozza. She is Nancy Silverton’s life time buddy. So food and wine are really a big part of my life. Along with my wife and super duper 4 1/2 year old daughter Josie Rose. As you can see by our super tourist photo:

BEER So really how did I wind up into being utterly obsessed with beer: drinking, reading, making, talking about it? Here are my 50 experiences: Starting with all these Local GastroPub spots that started sprouting up around the neighbourhood – or at least I started to notice them:

BJ’s (chain-y, but they do sell their own brews and they do actually win awards)
Wolf Creek Restaurant and Brewing Co. (chain-y, but good beers)
The Six Chow House (small selection, terrible service)
Lab Brewing Company (Dreary atmosphere, but they brew beers)
Pedaler’s Fork (Good Beers, Fun Atmosphere, odd service)
LadyFace Ale Companie (A++ – my favorite local Ale House)

So here are my 50 things that led me to the current state I am in:

Obsessively start eating at these establishments on weekends – especially LadyFace and Peddlers.
I randomly find Brew Dog’s on the Esquire Network…The what network? Didn’t even know there was an Esquire channel?
Obessively watch said TV Show.
Then turns out, my friend Chris, who I had invited to go have lunch at LadyFace, randomly mentions he won a Silver Medal at a World Home Brewing contest for an English Ale..Wha!!!! I knew he was into beer like me but had no idea he had seriously home brewed….Turns out he was the top brewer for 3 years at his Westside club. Oh I see he failed to mention he has won a shitload of medals. Sneaky Bastard!!!!! He is my new hero. Can’t wait to brew with the master.
I live 4 blocks from the famous Green Jug liquor store. Which so happens to have a big selection of refrigerated craft beers. I hear its overpriced but I can’t beat the location.
I start to buy more and more and more different beers from said liquor store. So much so that the employees know me now. At least they recognize my happy face when I am holding a basket of good new beers to try.
I start to enjoy these different fun and exciting beers more so than my growing wine collection. And now I look at my wine bottles with less enthusiasm and I see all my beers in my garage beer frig and I get really excited.
I come up with a dream of one day quitting work and starting a GastroPub in the neighborhood.
I start looking into it and think maybe focus on Craft Cider with small plates in a Hole-In-The-Wall location
Searching on the web I come to the realization that a GastroPub, while still my dream, might be very expensive.
One night, while still dreaming about GastroPub and Brewerys, I watch an episode of Brew Dogs and low and behold, they are in L.A…..Órale!!!! Turns out, the place they go in the show to buy ingredients is like down the mother fucking street. Wha!!!!????? Yes the Woodland Hills Wine Beer and Cheese Store off of Ventura Blvd.
Also turns out, there is a super old Beer Club there called the Maltose Falcons
(Turns out my friend Chris has won a bunch of awards at their contests)
Another strange coincidence is that 2 of my cubicle neighbours at work brew beer as well. One has for about a year and the other for a few years. And none of us knew the other did so until I recently brought up the subject. So we have a little brewers enclave now and can talk shop.
So I get up enough guts to go drive to the Home Brew Shop in Woodland Hills on the way home from work and I stop in and just straight up tell the guy working there, “I am a total nubie – Hook Me Up”
Like $200 later I am out the door with an Extract Setup, a Kettle and a kit for making “Drew’s Belgian Ale”
(This is a very profound decision that I chose this as the first kit….continue reading)

Actually Brewing Beer
OK so literally the next morning I follow all the instructions and brew my first batch on my stove top in my kitchen…totally brewing by the seat of my pants as I only read the next instruction, rather than the whole recipe first.
1. I steep the specialty grains.
2. I rinse the grains (Sparge)
3. I get the wort to boil and start to add my hops (buttering, flavor and aroma)
4. I chill the wort down to 70 degrees (and add any water to get it up to 5 gallons)
5. I rack the wort into a fermentation bucket and Pitch the WYeast (1214 Belgian Abbey)
6. My Notes on the Original Gravity:
7. Put the fermentation bucket into a soft cooler with lots of ice bags)
I parked it in my daughter’s shower to stay cool (she is not old enough to shower yet). This is the “coolest” place in my house that I could find that was fairly sanitary.
I really tried to follow the recipe and after taking a sip of it pre-racking to carboy I thought Damn…this beer is actually fucking awesome.

Post-Brew Notes:
1. Getting my kettle to boil took forever on my 1960’s era stove top.
2. And then getting the wort to cool down enough to pitch my yeast also took forever in my kitchen sink ice bath.
3. These are both very common problems. So you will read later on I buy some more equipment to help with these issues.
Meanwhile I start listening to a million hours of the “Beer Smith” podcast on my commute to and fro work. I have actually now listened to all 80 or so shows.
I start buying Beer making books on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble:
1. John Palmer’s How to Brew
2. Jamil Z’s Yeast Book
3. A whole lot more
I start subscribing to all the beer mags I can find.
I think about anything Beer while at work.
I wonder I am becoming an alcoholic since I am so excited to try a new beer as soon as I get home. I am thinking no, since I don’t drink a ton of beer…but of course if I am an alchoholic I would still answer no to this question.
So here the whole time I haven’ even bottled my first beer I am learning a shit load about the basics. I heard that is this a common thing, for folks to just consume as much information as possible as soon as they get into it.

More Brewing…
I go back to the Home Wine/Beer making shop and I buy another kit. This time its the Cone Head IPA kit. This time using my MF discount. I had joined online the club and wanted to take advantage of the discount without even had going to any club meetings yet.
I also go online and I get a badass burner. I feel bad not buying these things in the club shop but I thought online there was more to browse and also less intimidated about taking my time. I did end up buying a wort chiller at the Brew shop.
I also go to the shop near where I work, SouthBay Brewing Supplies, and buy a few more buckets and misc supplies.
Here is a pic of my new setup:
Now I can chill my wort faster and the water coming out of the wort chiller goes into my pool. Wort chillers are a huge water waster if you just are dumping the water.
Also now I can get my kettle to a boil much faster. I did have a spare propane tank in my garage so that was very handy.
I ended up breaking my floating thermometer (dropped it on the floor), so I upgraded to a metal thermometer than you can clip to the side of your kettle.

First Club Meeting…
So now I have 1 brew (Drew’s Belgian Ale) conditioning in the bottle, and I have my Cone Head IPA fermenting in a bucket, and I decide to go to the September Club Meeting.This was an odd meeting to be the first to go to since it was an election meeting. I honestly drove to the shop and chickend out when I saw so many cars parked in the lot. But then I got my courage up 10 minutes later and drove back and went to the meeting. I had no idea what to expect. It was really hot that day and there like 40-50 people in the club meeting room. I stood up the whole time. I ended up being super happy I went and that took a lot of the anxiety out of going to other events.I still felt like a complete nubie (because I am) but I tried to soak in all the vernacular and knowledge that I could. I ended up not turning in my ballot sheet since I didn’t know any of the people that were up for election.

LA Beer Week!
I bought VIP tickets for the LA Beer Week festival in China Town. Thankfully we have awesome friends that took Josie for the afternoon and so Eve and I got to go and had a blast.
I ended up not getting completely hammered. Tried a bunch of brews though. First time I have tried Brett beers. Super fun. Had some great sodas at the Club soda stand too, which were needed since it was so hot out. I ran into a friend of my cousins who is a brewer at Angel City. Talked to him for a while and his grilfriend who liked that I was wearing a out-of-print Deschutes T-Shirt.

She works for them as it turns out. They are one of my favorites for larger craft brewers and I took a tour of their brewery in Bend a few years ago. Also I bumped into folks from Maltose including Drew B. I told him I was brewing his Belgian Ale kit. So I chatted with the group a while and then we continued on our way. They did mention I should go to the Sept. Session Brew.

Club Brew Session
OK so I have successfully brewed 2 beers, can’t yet try them as they are still either bottle conditioning or fermenting, and I sign up for a “shop” brew session at the Maltose Falcons club. It was the September Brew session and we did a “Dark English Mild”. I had this vision of a nice gentleman or woman teaching us all about the Brewing setup and being super helpful. Kent, who god bless him, wasn’t in the mood to teach nubies. I honestly don’t blame him. He is probably thinking I am just some guy “into” beer for a just a bit. He really ended up doing all the work since no one else knew what he wanted us to do.
Anyways, there were about just 5 of us and 2 of us were fairly new. I tried to just shadow his movements and see what he was doing. I don’t really understand a lot of what he was doing. But the people there were really nice and so I felt that at least I got to meet some new people. We racked the wort into our carboys and I took mine home. I pitched with Dry Yeast, which as it turns out is totally fine, and sometime better than liquid yeast.
I ended up bottling it, and when I took the Final Gravity (1010), I tried a taste and it totally had a hammy, pork-chop after taste….so i am worried but will see next week how it really turned out.
I install Untapped on my iPhone. Fun app to share beers and see who is drinking what.
I had to travel to San Francisco for 1 week for a big tech conference and I decide to drive because I hate to fly.Incredibly hey there is Figueroa Mtn brewery right off the 101 in Buellton. I stop in and grab a small beer (I am driving ya know) and take in the brewing scenery. It was Figtober Fest and I really waned to stay longer. They had brats on a grill and a live band. It looked sooo fun.A couple hours later while driving up the 101 I am like OMG, there is Firestone Walker!! So I turn around and run into the tasting room. I try 4 samples- all good to very good. And I really wish I could stay longer but again I am driving 400 miles.

Anchor Brewing:
I get to San Francisco and a sales rep has a tour of Anchor Brewing lined up for me since he knows I am into brewing. I took my co-worker to the brewery and we had an awesome time. I have a new appreciation for Anchor beer now. I also had some other good craft beers while in SF.

Drive Back…
Of course now the whole time in SF I am thinking yeah I can hit Firestone and Figueroa Mtn. on the way back home too! So when I get to Firestone I have 3 tasters and then voila they are giving the Brewer Tour. OMG yes. So I take the tour and I didnt know I would be tasting more beer. So by the time I get outta there I am pretty buzzed.I had bought 3 t-shirts there, 2 for Eve, and 2 Sticky Monkeys (her favorite) and a 4 pack of Double Jack for me, and a $13 bottle of Agrestic. I also check out their “Home Brew” shop that really isn’t yet setup.
So I get on the road, driving south on the 101 with all this beer on my front seat (since it was hot that day and I have cold expensive beer that I don’t want to go bad). I decide to call Eve using my cell, and while I have the phone to my ear I see a CHP with a radar gun pointed at me and then running into his car. Holy crap. OMG….My mind starts racing. WTF I am going to do. So I start to hope that he just nails another car around me so I slow down and get in the slow lane. I see him drive up to my and he motions me to pull over. He also pulls over a car in front of me. I start to freak out. I am sweating and my heart is pounding out of my chest. I kinda of panic when I see all this beer in my front seat (most not even in bags). He comes up to me and asks how fast I was going. I tell him 78? I knew I was doing more than 80. He said he clocked me doing 83 all the meantime looking at all the beer in my car.
So he takes my drivers license and registration to his car. I am just dying and think he is going to ask me to get out of the car and do a DUI check. I dont think I was over the limit but I could have been. I weigh like 240lbs so I can pack a lot of booze. Anyways, he comes back and is nice and says he will just give me a ticket for doing 80 so I dont have to travel up there for a court date. Whew….he let me go…OMG he let me go!!!! Woohooo!!! So rather than just driving home, I stop by Figueroa Mtn to buy more beer and more t-shits.

Back Home:
I failed to mention that I also bought a used Freezer on Craigslist so that I could maintain better Fermentation temps rather than a soft cooler with ice packs in my daughter’s shower. I bought a pricey Fermostat online to control the temperature of the freezer (keep i at 68 degrees for my Ales). The freezer has barely enough width to hold both a big fermentation bucket and a 6 gallon carboy.
So I went from not knowing anything about anything to having a 57,000 BTU burner, wort chiller, high tech thermostat, beer frig, books galore, bottles up the yingang.

All-Grain in the Future
Now I am seriously considering getting a few more items to go All-Grain, just because I know its an eventuality and might as well plunge in now and get the learning curve over with. I really don’t mind being the extract nubie and just have fun with it, but it does seem more fun to have my own concoctions rather than some else’s kit.

Party!
I also took my very patient wife to the Maltose Falcon’s 40th Anniversary party at the Marriott, again near my house. It was a total blast. I got to meet a lot of characters and it was really fun to see how everyone dressed up for the occasion. Last minute, my wife and I tried to iron on a Maltose Falcons logo on my tie, and it was a semi-failure and to redo it would have taken too long. I was bummed, because it looked really cool. I should have worn it anyways. At least I know now how to iron on any type of graphics onto clothing. Kinda cool.
So I met someone at the party who worked for Hulu, who had a friend there that worked for another company, who knew someone at another company. Turns out, Drew B. works at my company…..and holy crap so do I. What the hell!?!?! The same Drew who made my first Beer kit, has written a ton about home brewing, is working at my same company. I have been there for almost 9 years and I didnt know that Drew worked here….That is freaky deaky.

Pics
I have been posting some beer pics on Instagram and Facebook. There were a ton of pictures that would definitely be fun to post from the Anniversary Party but I was too shy to take a lot of photos. The cake at the party was super delicious – I’ve never had a cake infused with hops before. Super creative and cool.

Summary
Hopefully I will meetup with some new friends to do community brews together. That would be really fun. And hopefully I can learn a lot too!! Mainly it would be fun to meet new people.