Introductions, Who am I and what am I doing here?

Hello out there! This is an introductory post to let you know what this is going to be about. There are 3 main aims, to journal my ventures and adventures as I take a trip away from the mass produced lagers that dominate most mainstream bars in the UK and Ireland. Secondly, I've made my first tentative steps into the mysterious world of Home Brewing. And finally, to seek out the newest Bars, and Off Licences which are stocking the hard to find Craft Beers. I don't pretend to know a great deal about this, but I do have a developed palate and a thirst (pun intended) for knowledge.

I started drinking at an early age, but probably not by today's standards, a cheeky 1/4 bottle of whatever spirit was on offer at the local "offie," downed as quickly as possible in order to avoid detection. As I grew older, it was inevitable that I would move to beer. Those early days I would drink mostly Budweiser or Miler Genuine Draft, which ever the bar had on draught. The mere thought of either of those beers makes me gag these days, its funny how your palate changes with time. I moved to Spain, just before my 21st Birthday, and I could buy any of the 3 or 4 local beers for €2 or spend nearly €5 for a bottle of the aforementioned American Lager, so I drank the local. When I returned to Ireland, I tried to go back to Bud and MGD but it just tasted like water. In fact it was watered down water. It was around that time Stella Artois became massive here and that ended up being my beer. Reassuringly expensive it may well be, but eventually the price and the minging hangovers, I moved on. Carlsberg, or Harp became my staple. It was around this time I began working in a Boutique Off Licence, working closely with Wine suppliers I became a keen wine enthusiast. I have Wine Connoisseur as a tag on my personal Twitter account details, but realistically I'm an enthusiast. I attended numerous tasting events, and developed my palate, in 5 short years I went from thinking there were 3 wines, Red, White, and when you mixed them you got Rosé to being able to differentiate between grape types, countries of origin, and in certain high quality wines even the region they were from. 

Skip forward to today, its impossible to ignore the growing Craft Beer market on the Island. Someone told me I should tell you what my first craft beer I drank was, and to that end I had written all about Hilden Brewery's Headless Dog and how that led me to sample the rest of their range, moving on to the famous Brew Dog and beyond, but then I remembered it was a trip to Canada a few years back and more specifically Vancouver's Granville Island, and their Micro Brewery. They didn't have a full liquor licence only a brewing licence so you could sample a small amount of each but you couldn't sit in there all day. It was this day I discovered that there was more to beer than excessive bubbles. Unfortunately I couldnt foresee this blog existing back then, and I have very little recollection of what these beers actually tasted like, other than good.

Just before Christmas 2013 I decided to brew my own. I bought a Coopers beginners kit with Canadian Blonde lager. The first batch was a complete write off, I cant even describe how bad it was, low low alcohol zero taste and just terrible in every way. Not one to give up easily I cracked on again with another Coopers lager kit. This one was much better, although the bottle priming was a bit hit and miss, it was a lottery if you were getting a decent lager or a flat stale lager. I am currently in the early stages of my third lager brew. I'm sticking with lager until I perfect it and then I will move on. Speaking of which i guess this is a good place stop, Ill hopefully have my first "proper" blog post alive next week. Until then, you can follow me on Twitter, my beer exploits will be posted under @PuzzlesNI check me out or just check out who I am following on this account, its mostly other bloggers in the Craft Beer scene.