A Maybe New Beginning

The hubs and I got into a huge argument the other night. This was surprisingly good because it helped us air our frustrations that we've been bottling up. He accused me. I accused him. I cried and he looked rather gruff. After all this we hugged, kissed and decided that we were going to make some changes. One of the things I wanted to do was create some common ground between us that is not the baby. I am so happy that he started playing cards with me again, so now I have a desire to learn one of his hobbies. Watch out because I am determined to become:

Rachel, Beer Brewer

Ollie has been interested in brewing beer for several years. He's made several batches, has moved beyond using pre-made extracts into doing an all-grain mash method. He has a deep freezer with temperature controls for fermenting (which I have *ahem* commandeered for freezing food since his last batch was over a year ago). He swears up and down to this day that the best batch he's ever made occurred one time when I helped him with it. Ever since then he's asked me repeatedly to help him, but I never have because of a) selfishness b) laziness c) lack of interest.

All of those have got to change, and I'm planning on doing something really special for him for Father's Day. My plan is to gift him all of the ingredients from a beer recipe, clean out the freezer that's in the house and transfer all of the food from the deep freezer into there. I also need to order another temperature control apparatus because the one he used to use to control the temperature of his fermenter has been moved to yet another freezer that he has set up for aging store-bought brews.

The only part of this plan I have a problem with is still a lack of interest that probably persists because of a lack of understanding. Beer brewing seems so complicated to me. It has a lot of steps. It's almost like playing chemistry. I am up for the challenge. 

Now off to try and locate Ollie's introductory beer brewing book....we'll see if I can capture that elusive beast!