The end of the year is here. It’s time to look back at all the great things I did things I wanted to do and did not. In January, I shared brewing resolutions for 2015. There were five things that I wanted to work on during the year. I failed at all five.
Get more involved in competitions: Absolutely zero progress here. I only judged one competition (and it was a pro brewer competition) and I didn’t enter anything. Even if I don’t enter anything I really want to be more involved in judging and helping others improve their beer.
Nail down a pilsner, kolsch, and pale ale recipe for my system: This one is mostly a fail, but with some silver lining. I didn’t even attempt a pilsner. Fail. I rebrewed my kolsch recipe once. It was during a heat wave and I struggled to chill properly. I ended up dumping it. Just tasted like apples. Fail. But here is the good part. I think I found my pale ale. I really liked the beer I brewed for my club and with a few reps I think I could get that one dialed in. Win.
Fine tune my system: I haven’t made any of the improvements that I’ve identified for my system. I did fix some wiring issues, but I am still where I was the day I finished this build. I need to make this stuff happen.
Experiment with sour beers: Another absolutely zero progress. I haven’t attempted anything. I did pick up a set of four 1-gallon jugs to do some small batch testing. I guess that is “progress.” Recently, I was talking with a buddy about kettle souring and tasted a couple of his experiments. I think that may be the way to attack this one.
Be more consistent in sharing what I learn and brew here: I actually only missed three months of posting. However, only one month of posting would I consider a success, January. Started strong and limped along the rest of the way.
Part of my issue in this past year was just not fully realizing the impact of my second son joining our family. I posted the resolutions just three weeks before he was born and immediately watched my free time disappear. I had just started getting to a more stabilized schedule when I posted and I feel I am getting there again (no kids on the way this time). So I think I can turn this around.
But this year wasn’t a total loss for brewing. In addition to the pale ale, I also had success with a coffee stout. That beer will definitely enter my rotation. Between my hops and grain, I’ve transitioned to more bulk buying. That has saved me some money, but I need to brew more to make sure I keep everything fresh.
My processes have been ironed out. As I mentioned earlier, I had some issues with equipment, but I have fixed them and the last couple brews have been problem free. Of course now that everything is working I am going to be making some changes. Everything I have in mind (and I’ll flesh this out more in the future) is quality of life focused. How do I make homebrewing work within the constraints life provides?
As I get to the end of this post it seems like this year has been mostly negative, but it is more that I didn’t stretch myself the way I wanted. I managed to stay afloat with big changes in the family and get back to the status quo. I feel like I am picking up momentum as I head into the next year. New posts are also in the works (spoilers… conical fermenter and temp control). I’m already starting to think about what I want to accomplish over the next year and that will come next week. At least some of these failures will be back to give me a shot at redemption.