I am glad i found you guys! a sales rep from brooklyn brewery pointed me to the podcasts and i been catching up with the shows.
I started brewing about 6 months ago using brooklynbrew shop 1 gallon kits. yeah yeah i know all the work for small amount of beer but its what i can afford financially and equipment/space wise at the moment.
i have made 15 gallons so far of different brews(IPA, porters, ESB, tripel, Belgium ale, Stouts) and i am loving every minute of it.
We have a local "homebrew" club based out of a restaurant here in Stamford and we have no official meetings, just basically get together every other month or so.
I am an all grainer and i was the ONLY one in the club (of about 15) to do it. its the only way i have learn and it will stay that way.
last meeting a Judge from AHA was giving us a lecture about how to do beer for competitions being that the restaurant is throwing one in july. he tried my porter and said it was as good a as a Guinness on draft. (bad or good? lol) so i decided to include this beer in the competition. However when i asked BBS(http://www.brooklynbrewshop.com) about the recipe for the grains (yeast and hops have the name in the packages) they told me they cant because they are releasing a recipe book in november and cant disclose the information before that!. so all that means is i have to start brewing for real!
i plan to start with a Hef because on one of the shows said it was a good beer for novices. so we will see!
thanks and cheers to all.
