BamfBeer Blog

bamf beer is a hobby. My buddy Matt and I, many years ago, while we were still teenagers, somehow discovered that drinking beer was about more than just getting loopy and projectile vomiting. I don’t know how this happened. We may well have been sloshed when we realized that there was some kind of weird Zen thing about beer. We grew to appreciate different kinds of beers, in part because we found that the fancier the beer we walked to the liquor store counter with, the less likely the guy behind the counter was gonna card us. Those “fancy” beers were just real ales, stouts, and lagers, as opposed to the crappy, cheap, wannabe, watered down crap most of America seems to drink. We discovered a whole world of flavors in beer. Floral aromas, chocolate overtones, nutty undertones, a touch of coffee here, a hint of citrus there. Before you knew it, we were hooked, and we began to brew.

Actually, Matt began to brew. I was a little intimidated by the whole process. Matt was more daring, and put out the first batch in his mom’s kitchen using (if memory serves) canned malt extract. I believe this same batch, or the one that followed, wound up on the ceiling of Matt’s bedroom. The stories started there, and have just kept getting better.

We haven’t used canned malt extract since those first experimental batches, after which we switched to an all-grain process. We haven’t looked back.

The beers we tend to come up with usually reflect our brewing process, and are usually not exactly what we set out to create. Since we’re more Zen and less science, we tend to debate the merits of things like adding hops in the last 10 minutes of the boil vs. letting the malty sweetness stand firm. I’m a hop-head. Matt’s more of a renaissance beer drinker. I’m a little more paranoid, while Matt’s a little more relaxed. Matt’s the chemist of the team, while I’m a high-level concept person. There are a lot of these complementary personality traits that I think make for interesting observation, a good laugh, and perfectly balanced beer.

So anyway, this site is here to hold our notes, our recipes, our compromises… basically, our beer journal. If we ever figure out how to post pictures in WordPress, we’ll add those, too.

Our first brew of the year is scheduled, tentatively, for May 27th, 2006. Check back after then and see how we did!

Brian.