What inspired you to start brewing?

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I took a British literature class in high school seven years ago, and while studying Beowulf, our teacher made a very big deal about how much she loved mead... I thought it sounded awesome, but eventually forgot. Then I got skyrim, and was reminded of the existence of this wonderful nectar of the gods, and now I'm hooked!

Haha I had a feeling I wasn't the only person who got inspired by Skyrim. Of course mead is in Oblivion too, but I never thought about what mead really was until I decided to look it up that wonderful evening, and now I have an amazing new hobby!!

And people say video games are bad for you...;D
 
The wedding of my best friend about a month ago reminded me how much I liked mead. Surprisingly enough my wife loved it too, while she normally doesn't like wine. I have always loved cooking and I've been meaning to start home-brewing for about the past year.
After finding the JAO recipe, I ordered some first equipment this weekend and can't wait for it to arrive and get started! :)
 
The reason why my buddy's wedding reminded me I liked mead, is because they served mead instead of champagne. :)

PS/Offtopic: I can't seem to find the edit button for my posts...

The wedding of my best friend about a month ago reminded me how much I liked mead. Surprisingly enough my wife loved it too, while she normally doesn't like wine. I have always loved cooking and I've been meaning to start home-brewing for about the past year.
After finding the JAO recipe, I ordered some first equipment this weekend and can't wait for it to arrive and get started! :)
 
The wedding of my best friend about a month ago reminded me how much I liked mead. Surprisingly enough my wife loved it too, while she normally doesn't like wine. I have always loved cooking and I've been meaning to start home-brewing for about the past year.
After finding the JAO recipe, I ordered some first equipment this weekend and can't wait for it to arrive and get started! :)

Nice avatar pic! I just got that book in the mail, it shall be my mead bible and probably yours too;D
Good luck with you're first batch! Hope it goes well for you!!
 
Nice avatar pic! I just got that book in the mail, it shall be my mead bible and probably yours too;D
Good luck with you're first batch! Hope it goes well for you!!

Thanks and good luck with your 1st batch too! :)

I'm about 1/3 through reading the book and I must say it is a very good read. It's starts out with a global overview and then breaks things down and provides some more in-depth theory. It also contains a couple of interesting recipes and a big list of ingredients and their properties.

Btw, Skyrim looks like a fun game to play, it's on my "want-to-play/buy-this-game" list, but first I need to find some time, I still have SSX, Dirt3 and Forza4 on xBox to finish and soon Diablo III on PC. :p

@TAKeyser: Found it! :) Weird that the edit button disappears after a while, but I guess there must be a reason for it.
 
@TAKeyser: Found it! :) Weird that the edit button disappears after a while, but I guess there must be a reason for it.

It's too keep people going back and editing recipes or posts months later and no one noticing. It's better to keep a running log for ease of understanding.
 
The still in "the Swamp" on MASH.
Even as a kid I some how found it fascinating that you could make your own booze.
Fast forward at least a couple of decades and I read a book called "101 things everyone could do back in the day" (or some such)...
It had an entry on making mead, the very old school way. Throw honey and water in a bucket, throw some cheese cloth over it and forget about for a few weeks.
My interest piqued once again, I did some Internet research and came across this wonderful site. There was no looking back. Now I have a regular supply of my own beer and mead and try to avoid spending too much $ on commercial products.

Oh, and I like to drink...;D
 
Thanks and good luck with your 1st batch too! :)

I'm about 1/3 through reading the book and I must say it is a very good read. It's starts out with a global overview and then breaks things down and provides some more in-depth theory. It also contains a couple of interesting recipes and a big list of ingredients and their properties.

Btw, Skyrim looks like a fun game to play, it's on my "want-to-play/buy-this-game" list, but first I need to find some time, I still have SSX, Dirt3 and Forza4 on xBox to finish and soon Diablo III on PC. :p

@TAKeyser: Found it! :) Weird that the edit button disappears after a while, but I guess there must be a reason for it.


I have yet to start reading the book because I'm so busy with college. Teachers just love to cram everything in during the last few weeks of the semester. And as for Skyrim, if you can play it on PC, I would definitely recommend it! That is, as long as your computer is capable of handling it. My boyfriend's computer can play the game on Max settings and let me tell you, the graphics look amazing!!!!!! I've played it through a few times on Xbox and it really is a lot of fun, but definitely play when you have LOADS of time to spare since it kind of takes up half of your life!! ;D
 
I've played it through a few times on Xbox and it really is a lot of fun, but definitely play when you have LOADS of time to spare since it kind of takes up half of your life!! ;D

All good games take up at least half your life! :P

@Soyala_Amaya: Ah, Iguess that makes sense, sort of. I think it would be much easier to find the correct recipe at the top of the thread than to have to dig through a couple of pages. Anyway, I'm not here to discuss forum setting. ;)
 
The still in "the Swamp" on MASH.
Even as a kid I some how found it fascinating that you could make your own booze.
Fast forward at least a couple of decades and I read a book called "101 things everyone could do back in the day" (or some such)...
...;D

Love this. MASH was great. Do you have a link for the 101 Things?
 
Alchemist,
It is a book. It's actually called "Back in the Day:101 Things everyone used to know how to do.". By Michael Powell

I think one of my more hippie friends has a quote from Michael Powell as his tagline, "Never eat anything you've seen advertised on TV" or something. And boy oh boy could we go off-topic on things nobody knows how to do anymore... but we don't use horses as our main travel anymore, so being able to drive or ride a horse has now been replaced with automobiles... And I may still know how to care for, train, handle and be transported by a horse, I know plenty of people who don't understand why their car might need an oil change. And there are so many things that are easier to buy than to make, the amount of work that goes into making a box of chocolate truffles or a batch of cookies is crazy when you consider you can just buy it for a couple bucks. The reason some of us still make things for ourselves is because we would rather spend the time than the money, and the reason others of us do it is because you just can't get what we want the way we want it. Chocolates and cookies with no chemical additive ingredients that can be altered for specific tastes or for dietary restrictions (try finding chocolates without soy lecithin if you're allergic to soy, for example, and finding gluten-free cookies with no milk or eggs? Good luck)... or fruit wines made with local produce... or meads.

Until the last couple of years, I had only ever seen two types of commercial mead, one was Moniack and the other was a bottle of some Honey Wine someone gave me after I'd learned what it was but before I got into making it myself, and I got into winemaking because I wanted to do something with all these awesome fruits that grow around here, and also make stuff I liked to drink and grapes just don't do it for me... and there's only one fruit winery I know of, out of the hundreds of grape wineries in this province.