Enjoying my beer or enjoying alcohol?

Here's an article I needed to read. It may be of interest to other brewers.

http://beergraphs.com/bb/344-high-functioning-craft-beer-and-alcohol/

Wow - certainly adds perspective, no? Hmmm... come to think of it, I've got a beer fest coming up in a couple of weeks...

I love a sophisticated drink. If it were just about the alcohol though, the priority would be quantity. No doubt a lot of people struggle with alcoholism. I would say it's unavoidable and that alcohol negatively effects anyone who enjoys it. I also think things can be just as bad for people who can't relax who never touch alcohol.

Thanks durettd! The article certainly ads perspective to the complex problem of alcoholism in our society.

I would call it profiling.

I started making beer by making wine. I bought a new home that came with a 120 bottle rack. A winesense store was down at the end of my street so I got a starter kit and boom red teeth city. I kept on accumulating equipment and foundmyself bootleging Xmas wine at the rate of 600 bottles in the season. I wanted more variety and my profit was 280 pottles or so with 30 varieties. I am a chef so I have no problems wasting a bottle or two to poach fish in it costing me five bucks or so. Then my buddy asked if I could do a kit of beer for him. Hook line and sinker. In April every year we would buy 40 kits of barons kits on sale to get our cost down to 33 cents a bottle and we were loving what we did. Just getting plowed. Oh I forgot.to mention my neighbors gave me 160 750ml picapop bottle full of lager of cheap stuff. That was thebyear we started mass production with. 6 primary pails and 18 carboys. Wine wasnslowly being weaned out. When all our summer beers were done we started grabbing candidate kits on sale buying new generic yeasts. We were slow.working these and it was winter and we was drinking sailor jerry's rum to get wasted. But Damn it buying rum was hurting our pockets. With research with distilled a few batches to superb results. Shine is crap...rum is heavenly. This experimentation lead us to 2 extract batches. And then straight to all grain. Last summer we bought 45 kits and when we tasted it.....well we were not impressed with our selves. Never again will we rely on a company do deliver us cornsyrup beer kits. We brought our avb on our rum down to 35% because it justtastes better. We don't brew above 6%. We want flavourful beer. Done are the days of drinking to blindness. I have 1-2 beers a day. Everyday. Good craft homebrews.  The flavors of which we like and cannot find anywhere. When you ferment...do it with friends. Make it good and don't rely on high avbs to determine the quality of your drink.

I probably give away 75% of what I brew.  I haven't had a hang over in 20 years.  I learned young.  I've never had a DUI and won't be getting any.  I did get pulled over leaving a bar two years ago.  Golfed all day at a tournament where there was beer and mixed drinks at every tee.  After golfing we went to the award banquet.  I had a crown and coke there.  Then to the infamous bar, where I had another crown and coke.  So, when I was pulled over and had to do all the DUI touching your nose stuff, etc. and eventually did the breathalizer, I blew .02.  The cop was amazed.  He thought for sure I was wasted.  He never did ask how much I had to drink lately, but only asked if I had been drinking.  I told him of my day and said I'd probably had 6 beers and two mixed drinks.  I knew I'd blow low on the breathalizer, so I didn't tell him I'd only had the two crown and cokes in the last six hours.  All of the beer was in the mornign and early afternoon.

I drink responsibly, even at home.  Maybe two in a day, at most usually.  I make beer to try to create something that makes people go "Wow, you made this?".  That is why I brew.  For taste, not for alcohol.

There is an arc among brewers that seems to go from malt to alcohol to hops to funk and finally to balance. Increasingly, I'm having conversations with brewers in the business 10 years that go, "You're making lagers? I wish I could!" There's a glittering elegance to a well made Pilsner.

There is no denying that the pleasure of alcohol is a draw to starting the hobby or a beer business. Humans are hardwired to like that form of pleasure. Frankly, if Botulism made us high instead of die, we'd be talking about the best way to putrify meat.

I loathe beerfest attendees that ask, "What's your strongest?" Whether the beer took a year or a month, it's no fun to pour a beer for someone that shotguns it.

Never trust a skinny chef.

Never trust a sober brewer.