First Blog

This is my first blog post ever! I (Josh) have decided to start a blog because I get so many inquiries about what I'm brewing, how the process works, is it legal, etc. My hope is that my brother (Jesse) will also post here and that this will become a blog for Myers Brothers Brewing. To be honest, I haven't even talked to him about it, but oh well...

I have plans to document with photographs our brewing process and evolution of the brewery. We are brewing tomorrow night, so be on the lookout for a post of that brew session.

Background Information
Home brewing is a growing hobby in the United States and worldwide. In the U.S. it is legal in almost every state. There are specific limits that vary from state to state. However, in general the rules are that you cannot sell homebrew and you are limited to a certain volume of brewing on an annual basis. For more information on your state's regulations, visit http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/legal.html.

We have been fooling around with brewing for the past several years on an individual basis. Jesse was the first as he and his fraternity house dove in and gave it a go. For Christmas that year, I believe it was 2006 or 2007, Jesse got me a homebrew equipment kit. I brewed a few extract batches with it that were okay at best. Then things got busy with work, school, pregnancy, kids, etc and I took about a 1 year break from brewing. In the Fall of 2008, we decided to combine our equipment at Jesse's apartment since it was so close to my work. We started with a few mini-mash kits we ordered online and they again were mediocre.

At this point I had joined a homebrew forum, http://www.homebrewtalk.com/, and our little hobby turned into a full fledged obsession. Over the past winter, we have purchased and fabricated some additional equipment to allow us to brew all-grain instead of extract and brew larger batches. We jumped from a 3 gallon brew kettle to a 15 gallon one. We figured out ways to brew at my brothers apartment, but it wasn't convinient and space was limited. Turns out aparments frown upon people using large propane burners to boil 15 gallons of scalding hot wort on their patios. Luckily we didn't get caught until recently, and then we just moved the propane tanks inside until brew night.

This past month my brother moved out of his apartment and into a house with a full basement and garage. I can't tell you how excited we are to not be brewing in an apartment anymore. The brewery setup is still in progress, but we have big plans and the only things limiting us are time and money.

Good things to Come!

Cheers - Josh