I didn't mention here that I won two golds and an Honorable Mention at the contest that weekend.

The honorable mention was the one I thought might win the whole competition, but it was undercarbonated. I'm fixing it in the three remaining bottles and then rebrewing it on Monday with a minor change or three. Then one of the repaired bottles goes to the National Homebrewing Competition and I'll have plenty to send if it moves on to the final round in Minneapolis.

Congrats Ben! I'm sure that's some fine beer.

I've found a local home brew shop and I'm now in the process of convincing my wife that if I spend $2-300 on equipment that I will be saving money on beer in less than a year. She wants to do some serious scrap booking with some fancy shape cutter. Who will get what they want first....IDK I'm sure it won't be me.

I don't know, Bob. Maybe you could find a club near you and see if anyone will help you brew a batch with their equipment so all you have to buy to start is a Better Bottle carboy (and accessories) to ferment in and then a month down the road, get a box of bottles and caps to bottle in. You'd be in for less than $100 and it would all be stuff you could reuse. Using the Alton Brown method (but modified), you might be able to do it yourself with very little additional equipment than you already have.

I bought my first equipment kit for $35.

Ah. I'm about to get two port barrels for aging alcoholic beverages! One is staying at the lake. The vineyard is only about 20 miles from there. 10 by air. It will get 53 gallons of cider. The other will come home with me. It will get beer. First something to take on the port-ness of the barrel and then it will go to "Funky Town". I'll be doing a series of sour beers. The idea is that you brew one sour beer and a lot of it. 55 gallons. That sits and ages with wild yeast and bacterial doing it's thing in the barrel for 18 months. Then you remove 25% and refill with new beer. That new beer will ferment for a while and age along with the rest, resulting in a more mature beer 12 months later when you brew more beer and remove 25% of the finished product. It's like an annuity. Once that up front investment of getting the barrel, brewing the beer and waiting 18 months is paid, you get splendidly soured, barrel-aged beer every year.

Do you have any idea how much work is entailed with brewing 55 gallons of beer?