Humble Beginnings

Welcome all! My name is Jack and I'll be your host from here on out (I'm also the guy that's making the beer, if you hadn't guessed). Anyway, I know it says "Brewing" up there but this is in no way "official"...just a dude making beer, and I figured there may be some people out there interested in following along and seeing how it goes...sharing my success - hopefully - and learning from my failure - inevitably. And for those of you wondering, "Why Upship! ?!" - I have a small substantial fascination with airships and I figured hell, what better a name - plus, it lends itself to good marketing if this ever breaks out of the "small time". That's the very basics of who I am and what we're all about around here, now lets talk about where I am in this brewing business.


At this very moment, I have read most of Home Brewing for Dummies, and I went down to my local Home Brew Supply Shop - Old West Homebrew Supply - and bought their basic home brew kit, as well as their "Whitewater Wit" ingredient kit (50% off with the brew kit). I'm thinking I will probably go back and get another 6 Gal. Carboy to use as my primary fermenter - rather than the 7.6 Gal. Food-grade plastic bucket the kit came with. No offense to food grade plastic...but I just feel like glass is better (please feel free to share your insights)! Now, for the time being, that's where I'm going to be - I'm moving in, oh, 24-hours and once I'm established in my new location my first batch of beer is priority #1! And a post will be soon to follow! In the mean time, I'll probably be reading The Complete Joy of Homebrewing which was also included in Old West's awesome equipment kit! And if you're looking for something to do while you wait for an update, consider checking out my good friend's blog about Wine Making, here at Zschoche Cellars!

Please feel free to send in some questions, leave encouraging comments, or hey, even send in some suggestions or requests for my next batch of beer!