Recent content by beersk

This is true. I don't think total abstinence is necessarily the path for me. For a cousin of mine, it totally is. She is the kind of drinker that has to keep going until she is blackout drunk and on an almost daily basis. My whole family is worried about her. She's had a couple DUIs and lost...

Good enough. Now let's get back to what we really know well...drinking beer. I've taken breaks before and usually around day 10 I really start missing it. So far I'm not. But things change once the weekend rolls around. That's a mentality I need to break, is the "Oh, it's the weekend, let's...

I got nothin'...

But there is no "alcoholic's gene". These same genes you refer to could lead to any number of addictions, not just alcohol. Maybe there's a hereditary component leading to a predisposition to addiction (of any kind), but that is not to do with genes. At least, from my research, it hasn't been...

That's the problem, isn't it? It's the perceived obligation to drink on certain occasions when really it isn't necessary. That's the mentality I'm trying to break. It's the There's-Always-A-Reason-To-Drink sort of attitude/mentality that I got myself into. It was always there but it got worse...

That's sad to read. Alcohol definitely takes control of some people more than others. I do not believe it's a gene like AA wants you to believe, but rather the alcohol itself. It's no different than any other addictive drug. Some people just go off the deep end while others can keep some amount...

Man, that's wild. Congrats on that. How long did it take to lose that much weight? I don't need to lose that kind of weight, but 20lbs would be nice. I'm 5'8 and 175lbs. Fairly muscular build and I carry it well, so most people probably would say I don't need to lose weight. But I think I look...

I know, I kind of feel the same way after 15-16 years of doing it. I started in fall of 2008, so coming up on 16. I talked to my doctor yesterday at my follow-up appointment for my EKG. Turns out there is something I need to worry about. He says probable left atrial enlargement and/or left...

This is true. But I'd probably cut down to 1 or 2 taps of 2.5 gallon batches. Anyway, I think when it comes to being fairly young and getting into homebrewing and maintaining it as a long-term hobby, it takes a fair amount of trial and error to find what works best. I've been through a lot of...

This, to me, is - waste of time is the wrong phrase - but 2.5 gallons is the smallest I'm willing to go with it.

Well, sure. But we're not here to define what problem drinking is. We're here to talk about life as homebrewers and being responsible with it. Personally I feel like I've been at a crossroads with drinking and homebrewing for about the last 3 years. No doubt the pandemic caused a lot of things...

You also have to keep in mind where they're coming from. My mom and my uncle think that most people drink too much because their dad was a major alcoholic. So their attitude towards drinking is different than, say, a friend's or someone who didn't grow up in a house where a parent was a bad...

I think the pressure fermentation keeps the aroma from the hops in the fermenter rather than blowing it off, works fantastically with preserving dry hop aroma in my experience.

I'm working with my doctor to see if all it is for me is "holiday heart syndrome". It very well could be. I am otherwise a healthy 40 year old, get regular exercise, eat decently, not overweight (by much if I am anyway), good blood pressure, blood work, etc. But I definitely have been a...

I feel like this was very much me as well, particularly the last 4 years since the bloody pandemic. And only in the last about year have I really been starting to notice that maybe it's not so good for me anymore. Pre-pandemic I used to ride my bike to work every single day, about 20-25 minutes...