I started my brewing hobby on Christmas of 1997. I must have been a very good boy as Santa was kind enough to bring me a starter homebrew setup that year.
I then made about 5 batches of extract beer using the basic kits and liquid malt extract. I was hooked! It was in my blood now and I knew there was no looking back.
It didn't take many batches before I started in with specialty grains and then up to partial mashes by batch number 10. After my first taste of my first partial mash, a fine American Pale Ale, I realized that I was destined to go the all grain route.
I then started putting together equipment to go this route and have made over 50 all grain brews as of July 4, 1999. That's some serious brewing, I don't mess around when it comes to my beer.
I make no claims to be an expert brewer, but I do make some mighty fine brews. My friends that have all converted to homebrew can attest to that. I take pride in knowing that I have saved many a sole from the grasps of the megaswill breweries. Of course my brew supply seems to dwindle much quicker these days.
I think one of the most helpful things I did to improve my brewing was to join the local Home Brew Club. My club is The Upstate New York Homebrewers Association located in Rochester, New York, USA.. There are about 100+ members and the talent pool is fantastic. The membership includes professional brewermasters that always bring samples to each meeting, one of my favorite parts. Their advice has solved many problems I ran into that I would have pulled my hair out (what's left of it) trying to solve myself.
I've even gotten into growing my own hops. I enjoy gardening so this was a natural evolution for me. The first year I got about 2 ounces of nice Cascade cones from my plants. This year I expect to get a couple gallons at least. I made a nice trellis setup with a design from my "Homebrewing For Dummies" book. It turned out great and I am expecting big harvests in the future for my efforts.
One other thought I would like to share: I prefer to purchase all of my homebrewing products locally. I do this in order to support the local economy as well as keep the shops in business. There have been a few times that I found much better prices on the internet for products, but after discussing the prices with my local shop they always matched the prices. Their advice is always right on target as well as being very courteous to their customers. Therefore, I will continue to patronize my local shops as long as this is the case.

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