Underage drinking

1/23/10 Mr. Beer home brewing equipment, recycled

I love beer. Perhaps not as much as my kid, or my wife, or the Red Sox. But, I do love beer.

I also love Do-It-Yourself projects.

So, naturally, I attempted to combine these two interests into a home-beer-brewing hobby. It didn't work, mainly because the beer tasted awful. I made my first batch about eight years ago in my apartment in New York City. I blamed the untimely arrival of the pizza delivery man on my not adding the yeast at the proper moment, therefore making the batch taste slightly better than sugar vinegar.

It took eight years for that memory to fade enough for me to give it another shot, which I did last spring. No pizza guy to blame this time. But the beer, to be frank, still sucked.

In fact, I still have a 2-liter bottle of it in the fridge. If you're trying to avoid getting a reputation as a raging alcoholic, it's not a great idea to have a 2-liter bottle of beer in your fridge to begin with. It's especially troublesome when the beer is of such low quality that you can't break it out when there happens to be a crowd around to drink it.

Never one to waste anything, I'm not going to downsize that jug-o-beer, at least not yet. It's destined for my gullet, gosh darn it.

But, it shall surely sit there for a long time, since the baby-induced-exhaustion has made even a casual drink with dinner pretty much out of the question. I'd pass out half-way through my first glass.

Thanks, kid.

Given that in eight years, I've only used my Mr. Beer brewing kit twice -- and both times the results were crap -- it wasn't too hard for me to downsize it today. I'd tried to figure out who I could give it to, but I wouldn't wish this bad-tasting waste of time on anyone.

Mr. Beer promotes itself as "America's #1 brewing kit." Dear Readers, I'd hate to taste the beer made by American's #2 brewing kit.

So, it's into the recycle bin with the Mr. Beer micro-beer keg.

Hey, anybody out there want to drop off a six pack of Sam Adams?