Hey everyone. I’m Andrew and here’s a little bit about me:
I've been home brewing for a while now, and I found this forum a while back, but apparently my account didn't activate the first time I registered. Anyway, I’m here now.

For the past several years I’ve been experimenting with brewing various types of fruit wines and have gotten fairly creative with them. Those were fun to make, but the success rate was a bit lower than I liked. I tended to have about equal batches of good wines and bad wines with the good ones being consumed rather quickly and the bad ones left taking up space in my carboys...

Sometime last year my sister got me one of those Mr. Beer kits. Knowing enough about brewing to be skeptical of this "kit,” I brewed the contents of the hopped malt extract with low expectations. That first Mr. Beer batch turned out. Wasn't bad, but wasn't good.

I already knew that kits like that weren’t ideal which is why I had low expectations to start with; however, that experience of trying to brew a decent beer sort of lit a fire under me. After that experience, I knew what needed to be done. Having a good deal of the equipment necessary for brewing fruit wines and such, it didn't take long before I picked up Charlie Papazian's Complete Guide to the Joy of Home brewing, read it in about a night, and was at my local brew shop asking questions and picking grains.
Since that first mediocre batch, I’ve brewed a porter that all of my friends loved and drank quickly, an extremely dark stout which I liked but not so many others did (I may have overdone that one), and most recently a Dunkleweizen that tastes great but is a bit over-carbonated.

I'm about to start two new batches as I have all the ingredients for a Märzen style beer (with cinnamon which I’m considering leaving out), and I also have another Stout recipe I’m going to try out that I can also start at any time. As you perhaps can tell, I’m all about dark beers.
I have some questions I’ll probably be posting around from time to time. I am a student studying Geology and Chemistry, so I’m also very interested in brewing chemistry and water chemistry. I’m in San Jose CA right now, but I’m waiting to hear back from graduate schools in Wyoming and Washington which I’ve applied to. Even though I have some experience in this, I know I still have a lot to learn! I’m still bottling all of my beers (not sure what kegging is about yet), and I have yet to experiment with more complicated brewing techniques, recipes, equipment, and methods. I’m eager to learn it all!

You will probably be seeing my posts around from time to time as I come here for answers to questions that come up, so I thought I’d introduce myself. I look forward to hearing from you all!

Welcome to the forum. You would love Wyoming for the continued education.

I make mostly wine. Be happy to help anyway I can in that area.

I'm back!

Hey all, And1129 here. I've been out of the hobby for a while accounting to my recent move. I just moved to Pullman Washington where i'm starting graduate studies at WSU. Moving has been hectic, but i finally got (most of) my brew supplies up here. Right now i'm brewing my first batch here in Pullman! It's a smoked porter. One of the great things here is that one of my professors also is a big time homebrewer, so he's introduced me to the local homebrew club. A bunch of those guys have opened a new brewpub here in town, and the brew club gets together and brews smaller batches outside on the steps once a week or so. There are a couple homebrew suppliers here in town (pullman and moscow) and i think there's more up in Spokane as well... I'll have to check that out. Anyway, i'm set up and brewing once more!