Happy Birthday to Me

So my birthday happened over the past weekend, and it got me thinking about when I turned 21 and had my first (memorable) experience with beer.  I'm sure I had some tastes here and there before then, but it wasn't anything mind-blowing, and generally left me with a general feeling of ambivalence when it came to our favorite malt beverage.

If you hadn't guessed already, my birthday is at the beginning of January, a time when college students are typically home on winter break.  I'm not entirely sure how I convinced my parents to let me go down to college for my 21st birthday; I'm pretty sure I mentioned something about undergraduate research and chemistry or something... But let me go they did.  (Although, looking back at it now, I'm pretty sure they knew exactly what I was doing, but does it really matter?)

My roommate at the time and I made the trek out on that cold winter's night to the only pub at the University of Illinois that I trusted on that fateful night:  Murphy's.  Now, it may not have technically been 21 years old as I approached the bar, since the clocks had not yet struck midnight, but with a little sweet talking the bartendress (is that the proper term for a female bartender? bartendrix?)  handed me my first beer.

What did I order?  Well, as I was pretty much a total neophyte when it came to beer, all I knew was not to get one of the big three.  Beyond that, I was an impressionable youth.  And that, my dear readers, was one of the very few times in my life that I allowed advertising to make a choice for me.  So what was my order?

That's right.  Fosters.

What can I say?  The giant oil can persuaded me.  I wondered what made it so special.  And the beer told me... a large advertising budget and a catchy slogan.

I did learn something else that fateful night.  The Fosters we get here in the USA isn't Australian; it's Canadian.  That's right.  Fosters:  It's Australian for Canadian for Beer.

Cheers. Na zdrowie. Gun bae.

Thank you Old Chicago, or How I learned to stop worrying and love the hops.

I moved from the northwest suburbs of Chicago up to the Twin Cities in June of 2002, just after graduation from University of Illinois (Go Illini!) with a degree in Chemistry.  I left my family and friends and pretty much everyone I had ever known to move to Minnesota.

What was in Minnesota to make me go do that?

The University of Minnesota where my then girlfriend now wife was going to become a Ph. D student.  (She eventually got her Master's degree and jumped into industry, but that's a whole other blog...) 

At that point, I was mildly knowledgeable about craft beer, but I still didn't realize the amount I didn't know.  I was in the Guinness-Harp-Sam Adams phase of beer drinking. (Anyone who has gone from clueless to craft beer lover knows what phase that is; "Black and Tans are the best thing to ever happen to beer!" *sigh*)  Did I love beer at that point?  Nope.  Would I have even considered homebrewing, let alone dreaming of opening my own establishment, at that point?  Heck no.

My how things change, and it all started because of one dining and drinking establishment. 

Old Chicago.

For those not in the know, Old Chicago is a chain bar/restaurant/pizzeria scattered about the USA (although, somewhat surprisingly, not in Chicago).  One day, the wife and I, fresh off the proverbial boat from Chicagoland, see a restaurant claiming to be the embodiment of Chicago and decide to go check it out.  While the pizza doesn't hold a candle to Chicago deep dish, the main attraction was the 20ish beer taps and a similar number of bottled beer available.  Now this may not seem too crazy nowadays, but remember this was 2002; well before the near double-digit percentage increases in craft beer sales recently. 

The sheer number of beers, while impressive, by itself would not have been enough to push me towards craft beer lover.  However, they had a special beer drinker's card which got you swag if you drank x number of different beers.  So drinking 20 Sam Adams would not get you anything, but drinking one each of 20 different beers would get you a t-shirt or something.  If you drank one of every beer they had, you got your name engraved on a plaque on the wall. 

Now being a video game player and a slightly obsessive completionist when it comes to collections and free stuff, I very willingly fell right into their trap:  Asking the server for printouts of what beers I have on my record.  Planning my drinking such that I maximized the number of varieties I could drink before they were rotated out.  I didn't make a spreadsheet, but I was close.

I never got my name on the plaque, but trying such a wide variety of beers opened my eyes to the world of craft beer.  The experience taught me a lot about what I liked, what I didn't like, and ultimately what good beer tastes like.

Thank you Old Chicago.

Cheers.  Na zdrowie.  Gun bae.

About Me, the Long Version.

I am a father, a husband, a chemist, a gamer, a geek...

and a brewer.

My name is Andrew Goode, and I'm the brewmaster of Hedgehog Brewing Company, and my dream in life is to make that title actually mean something. I am creating this blog to chronicle my brewing career, my recipes, my dreams, and possibly even my failures.

So what is Hedgehog Brewing Company? Currently, it's the kegerator in my basement, the glass and plastic carboys where my beer is fermenting, and the propane turkey fryer in my garage. What will Hedgehog Brewing Company be in the future? A local neighborhood brewpub in the Twin Cities where people can drink good craft brew, and eat good food in an atmosphere conducive to families and drunken fratboys alike (although hopefully not simultaneously). I envision 5-6 beers on tap at any one time, with 3-4 of them being available year round with 1-2 seasonal beers.

Anyway, I will post when I can. Thanks for heading my way.

Cheers.  Na zdrowie.  Gun bae.