Homebrewing Tips | Cleaning is Sexy

Image from Eckraus.com. 

She looks at him and raises the bottle to her lips. After taking a sip, she slowly lowers the beer in disbelief.

“You brewed this?” she asks.

“I did.” he replies with a grin. She sets the beer down and moves closer to him. He grabs her by the waist and they embrace in a passionate kiss.

“Shit!” I exclaim as the water overflows and my daydreaming fades away.

I sanitize the last bottle and place it on my bottling tree to dry. I’m almost ready to bottle two cases. I have already spent an hour preparing everything. My back hurts, my fingers are pruned, and I smell. Cleaning sucks. It’s not sexy, or romantic, or even mildly entertaining. It’s work. Read More

My First Beer: How I Started Homebrewing

I remember my first beer. I dumped it down the drain.

I brewed my first beer as a way to deal with something extremely personal. Growing up in Aurora and becoming … Read More

True Hero: Alex C. Teves

I’m hesitant to write this, but in order to accurately tell his story, I have to tell mine.

I grew up in Aurora, Colorado, I was born and raised here, and I graduated with the same kids I met on the first day of school. Our city is a large-small town, meaning that everyone knows everyone. Even when I moved to college eight hours away in Durango; Aurora came with me.

On July 20th 2012 at 7:00 am I woke up and checked my phone to a report that a gunman had killed 12 people the night before. My heart sank. The shooting happened at Century 16, a theater I had gone to since the day it was built. I knew exactly where theater nine was. I could see it in my head. I immediately responded like most would, by scanning the internet for details about what had happened. The media was reporting that someone had opened fire, people were dead, and there weren’t a lot of details as to why. Soon more information came out and it all clicked. This was an attack on Aurora. This was an attack on my neighborhood, my high school, and my friends.

Read More