I hope I'm not too late

Adam from Beer Bits 2 came up with this idea to have a blogging party on a mothly basis with other people hosting. We'll in true Travis fashion, I managed to be late. Better late than never I suppose. Here is how I got started with homebrewing:

While in college, I was a frat guy. My friends and I used to drink the Saranac 12 beers of Christmas and talk about what one we liked best. On one road trip out to meet a few alumni, I met this alum named Spike. The guys took us out to the 10 Ugly Men festival (which at the time was only like a year or two old and was nowhere near as big as it is now) to enjoy some of the craft beer Rochester has to offer.

Afterwards we went over to Spikes place and he showed us his basement. I was in awe, he had a pool table and a keggerator with two of his beers on tap! I had never seen anything like it! I remember leaving that place and thinking "this man has the world by the balls". From that point I decided that I was going to know I had made it in life when I had two of my beers on tap and a pool table (I currently have three on tap, but no pool table).

After graduating, while living in an apartment, I started reading about homebrewing and trying to learn all I could before actually taking the plunge. In hindsight I should have just jumped right in because I learned more from brewing than I have ever learned from reading about brewing (especially reading the Monday Night Brewery blog, they're busy playing with toxic bubbles while the big boys are brewing).

Anyway, after a Walmart brew kit that sucked, I decided to go ahead and buy a real brew kit when I discovered EJ Wren (that happened to be like 2 miles from where my now wife lived, coincidence? I think not). I was always pretty damn happy with my extract brews, even with the first couple. Perhaps ignorance is bliss, but I liked them.

As they say, the rest is history. Cheers!