I got an interesting email a few weeks back from Jordan a fellow beer blogger.

Real Men

The guys doing the real work! Jordan, Chris, and Andrew

If you have not read any of his stuff you should check it out here: St. John’s Wort, he is a great writer.  Anyway Jordan somehow got to talking with the Southern Ontario Brewers (SOB’s) about having a group of local bloggers come down to the Learn 2 Brew day held at the Amsterdam brewery and brew some beer (since we are so quick to rate it why not make it).  With out thinking twice Jordan accepted their challenge.  Little did he know that of the bloggers he contacted and that accepted the challenge would be me and Chris from the Toronto Beer Blog.  Both of us have little to no brewing experience….Joke was on him apparently, but Jordan is smarter than the average bear and hooked us up with a ringer (and fellow blogger) Andrew!  Andrew just happens to work at the Amsterdam Brewery and is also in the inaugural year of the brewmaster program at Niagara College.

I am not sure what I expected when I volunteered for this since my brewing experience was all theoretical and not practical but I have wanted to brew beer for quite a while now and this seemed like a good way to get my feet wet.  I am sure Andrew is still thinking about “that guy” who could not stop asking questions!

I can’t say enough about the Amsterdam brewery and their generosity of loaning out the brewery to a bunch of amateur brewers to use for the day.  It was very cool!

Christmas Ale Anyone?

I was surprised by the amount of brewers there but also the amount of people walking through and asking questions.  All in all I had a great time, learned a ton and had a few laughs.  What more could you ask for?  I am not going to write about the beer brewed or brew day itself since Jordan has and Chris likely will have better posts on it!