An Introduction

Everyone needs passion in their lives. For me, it's brewing kick ass beers with my BFF Mike, who just so happens to be my father in law - figure that one out?! - and growing my own veggies, herbs, flowers and fruit trees. First the gardening, never in my life would I have believed you if you told me that I would be willing, let alone seeking out, home improvement and landscaping projects. I absolutely loathed yardwork when I was a kid. I swore that the only reason yards and landscapes were invented was to punish children now that they can no longer work in the mines! Now, however, I've created a quite presentable garden and patio area in my meager backyard. Here, judge for yourself:

Before (oh yeah, I fixed the flooding problem too)

After

Looks like a fairly nice sanctuary, huh?! This picture was taken last summer when I was feeling pretty good about the backyard but not completely satisfied. Since this pic was taken, I've taken another quantum leap forward (without the help of Scott Bakula). I'm moving the direction of a sustainable food garden. I have my lovely wife to thank for helping me make this decision and you can see why if you check out her amazing blog too. This spring has proven a radical transformation of my garden, as well as my attitude toward it. Before, I was at best a passive gardener but I hadn't made the difficult yet necessary emotional commitment to believe that I could create an urban farm-like plot in my 33' x 16' closet of a backyard. Now I have made that commitment, I have successfully grown nearly every new plant in my garden from seed (a first for me), and more than half of all my plants are edible, medicinal and/or aroma-therapeutic. LG said it best just the other day, so I won't try to, but check out this bounty she picked on a random Tuesday in May (along with our other bounty!).

Moving onto my other great passion: homebrewing. Mike and I have really got things dialed in with our homebrewing. For example, we currently have a Margarita Mead frothing in the carboy in Mike's beer closet. Here's the simple recipe we used to create what promises to be a refreshing, delicious and debaucherous drink:

3lbs pressed agave nectar

10lbs mesquite honey

Water enough to make 5gal

Zest of 3 limes (primary fermentation)

Juice of 5 limes (keg/bottle - to prevent the citric acid from killing the yeast)

This recipe has been brewing (yeah, I'm that stupid) in my head for about two years now. It was inspired by the sole-scotching desert summers here in PHX (it's supposed to be 103 today in early May - fuck global warming!), several previously successful meads, reading the recipes at gotmead.com and some sage advice from a chance encounter with the current American Mead Czar, Bernie Tonning, head meadmaker for Redstone Meadery, at Papago in early 2008. I asked Bernie for some advice on how to brew mead with agave nectar and he suggested doing a 70/30 split between honey and agave. Hence, the recipe was born. What about the lime, you may ask? How could one justifiably make a mead with agave nectar and not put lime in it? That was just a given, like bacon and pretty much anything else.

Back to the brew team. We have a very complementary yin and yang collaboration style

Mike and me. He is very precise, balanced, traditional and clean, while I'm creative, non-traditional, experimental and messy. It's works quite well in both the creation and execution of panty-moistening homebrews and meads and we both have delusions of grandeur that we could take this show on the road someday... or, at least, when we've over-partaken of our craft we ruminate about opening our own shop.

So, there's the intro to the blog. There will be much more mental diarrhea to follow and perhaps even a few snipits of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it.