How did Brew and Build come about?… Well, brewing has been one of my top past-times for many years now.
I began brewing mainly in order to use up our apple harvest each year, and turn it into cider. However, I kept putting off starting, as I always had other things that required attention first. Mainly a 150 year old farmhouse that we are rebuilding.
My wife kept saying, “just get some gear and start, otherwise you’ll never do it”. As usual, she was right. I began that week with some buckets and a few bottles and tubes that I had around the house. Nearly a decade later, I have ended up spending thousands on equipment, brewed cider, fruit wines, mead, unusual hedge-row fruit and herb concoctions, and of course a massive amount of beer.
Many of my early brewing trials were oriented around foraging for unusual and/or historical brewing ingredients from the woods around our house. Without going into too much detail, I can categorically say that there were some ‘interesting’ results, many good, but many not so. This however, gave me a fantastic understanding of brewing from the ground up. When you’ve tried to ferment birch leaves and fir tips, brewing beer with commercial malts is easy.
If you’re interested in some of my set-up, have a look at the video below. It’s a little dry, but it gives an idea as to what I’m working with. Thanks for reading about Brew and Build, I appreciate your interest.