...I'm trying to avoid, but that was the name of my first home brew beer.  Yes it was and it came out great.  It certainly was not all my doing.  I just bought the extraction kit, a few supplies like a carboy (hoity toity name for 6 gallon bucket), and a stopper/bubbler. 

The beer, as you might have guessed, is a clone of New Belgium Brewing Company's Fat Tire.  I got hooked into trying this out because John B. has gone hurricane in brewing batch after batch after batch.  I've personally only liked two that he has produced, because they are not very hopps saturated, or bitter.  yuck to IPAs!!!  Just not a fan for my taste buds.

Big Bad John guided me through the heavy, waist deep, hurricane created waters of doing a Home Brew.  In essence, I was his gopher.  hahahah  Really, it was cool to get that pot of 6 gallons to a rolling boil, throw in the grain to steep, watch that temperature, then cool it down real quick with wort chiller (spiral thing of copper that is a basically a heat exchanger).  It was pretty fun!

We slapped that baby into the primary fermentor, my carboy that is a glorified 6 gallon bucket!!  This was followed by unleashing the yeast of fury to chew up all that schtuff in there.  Because you know, it's alive and farts out CO2, carbon dioxide.  The bubbler stopper was put in place and filled with Vodka.  This is a one way valve essentially, which is to keep oxygen out, as that is a bad thing. 

The primary fermenting stage went for about 1 week at room temperature in a dark closet.  Then we transferred it to a secondary carboy for fermenting at a much cooler temperature in the refrigerator.  I can't remember the temperature, but I assure you John was on top of it.  I think we went 1 or 2 weeks on the secondary, and then transferred finally to the keg, which then was pressurized by a CO2 tank.  A couple days later...and it was done as could be.

We bottled a case up for a work Oktoberfest and it was received well.  Course, I didn't care much as it was named correctly, had alcohol in it, and tasted good.

Thanks to John for introducing this hobby to me.  I think I'll try to squeeze one in every few months or so.  Gotta see what I'd like to do next.

The Recipe Kit

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Primary

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Secondary

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Taste Test!

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