Brew year's resolutions

[Rob DeNunzio]

Starting anew, making promises you'll never keep, predicting positive changes to your intrinsic nature so deep that you'll shock your friends while garnering fame, wealth and prestige - these are all the hallmarks of the traditional New Year's resolution. These, on the other hand - ones that pertain to your habits surrounding the acquisition, brewing, enjoyment, sharing and discussion of beer - shouldn't be goals too hard to achieve.

What are you going to do differently in 2009?

One thing that comes immediately to mind for me is getting back to bottling more homebrew than kegging it in order to be able to share it more easily. It's a nasty, unpleasant ordeal I'd all but forsaken for years with the singular exception of our holiday gift ales, but in recognizing how much fun it is to share them (thank you, Indoctrinator!) it's clear I need to get past my disdain for bottle washing and start putting those 22 oz bottles to the side of the recycling bin.

I'd be curious to hear about the rest of you. Taking on any new hobbies? Planning on any beer-related travels? Looking to tick off some more exclusive rarities from your gotta-try list?

[Ray Grace]

Great topic. First of all I'm hoping for a brand new brew kettle under the Christmas tree so I can start doing full wort boils.
I hope to finally make it down to the Lost Abbey.
Brew even more next year than this year.
Convert the spare coolers in the garage and trying my hand at all-grain.
Sharing more of my homebrew with others. (it is a lot of fun isn;t it?)
Truly organizing all my homebrew stuff.
Finally host a beer dinner for some friends that I've been talking about for months.

[Ray Grace]

Just looking back on last years Brew year's resolutions and I seem to have done pretty well with these. Got that new brew kettle, brewed more than the previous year (11 in all), shared quite a bit of my homebrew with friends and I finally made the leap to all-grain with batch 11.

Hoping in 2010 to brew 15 batches, build a kegerator,perfect my IPA recipe, and host that beer dinner.

What about everyone else?

[Virgil G]

I hope to head out west this year.

Otherwise, probably just more of the same humdrum traveling around and buying, drinking, and cellaring beer.

[gisbrewmaster]

I don't have a lot of goals for my homebrewing hobby this year but a few of the big ones are:

1. Brew atleast 10 batches of beer
2. Attend the Homebrew conference in Oakland
3. Post atleast 10 posts a month on my blog (8 beer reviews, 1 The Session Post and 1 Fermentation Friday Post)
4. Make a barley wine by March to age until Thanksgiving
5. Possibly try All Grain brewing.

Other then that I would like to keep learning about and having fun with beer.

GISBREWMASTER
Matt C.

[Rob DeNunzio]

First round at Toronado's on me.

Virgil G said:

I hope to head out west this year.

[The Beer Babe]

I have a few.

One, I'd like to start brewing, as messy and as scary as I still think it might be. It's my logical next step!!

Second, I'd like to write more editorials/articles in addtion to my reviews

In travel, I'd like to in 2009, at least visit every NH and ME brewery/brewpub. (Pennichuck, you're next!)

And, writing a list of everything I taste (whether I review it or not) for my own reference and bragging rights.

[Paul Sinderson]

Great topic! My beer-related goals for the year:

-Come up with a good name for my home brewery
-Improve some of my equipment with low-tech upgrades
-Finally make a barleywine...dammit!
-Find a way to attend GABF
-Enjoy some great Northern CA breweries with my then wife on our honeymoon!

That's about it for now.

[Rob DeNunzio]

That's two votes for hitting NorCal. Looks like I'll have some entertaining to do...

Paul Sinderson said:

Great topic! My beer-related goals for the year:

-Come up with a good name for my home brewery
-Improve some of my equipment with low-tech upgrades
-Finally make a barleywine...dammit!
-Find a way to attend GABF
-Enjoy some great Northern CA breweries with my then wife on our honeymoon!

That's about it for now.

[Matt Peters]

in 2009 I will:

-Star brewing with my brand spanking new equipment
-Attend at least two major Fests (eg. ACBF, GABF, Belgium Comes to Cooperstown)
-Be better about posting to my blog (2-3 times a month)

[Chipper Dave]

2009 will mark the return for me to homebrewing. Just picked up a new 15 gallon Blichmann Boilermaker and a Bayou Classic SP10 propane burner at Christmas and will be hitting up my local homebrew shop later this week to get final supplies to brew my 1st beer in over 10 years (finally).

Other than homebrewing, I plan to travel to some nice exotic locale this summer to help celebrate my wife and I turning the big 5-0 in 2009. OMG am I getting older? Nah - I still feel like I'm in my 30s.

I hope to expand my beer travels and hit up as many new breweries as I can. I plan to take a lot more video and brush up on my editing skills as well. More writing in 2009.

[Jinja]

I'm in!

Jinja Out

Rob DeNunzio said:

That's two votes for hitting NorCal. Looks like I'll have some entertaining to do...

Paul Sinderson said:

Great topic! My beer-related goals for the year:

-Come up with a good name for my home brewery
-Improve some of my equipment with low-tech upgrades
-Finally make a barleywine...dammit!
-Find a way to attend GABF
-Enjoy some great Northern CA breweries with my then wife on our honeymoon!

That's about it for now.