How it all started

I've decided to do my first session blog post although it is a day late. I didn't really try any new or different beers until about five years ago. I had worked in an off license and knew quite a bit about wine and I would try out all sorts of wines but I never thought about beer in quite the same way. It was just something you drank but wasn't particularly nice. Then a visit to Yorkshire changed that. I discovered all sorts of different real ales and they were really nice. You couldn't get the same variety of beer in Ireland but my interest in beer started there. A friend of mine introduced me to a great off license in Waterford, World Wide Wines where I could get lots of different beers which I started to try. It was just after this that I got a job in a brewery and that's when my interest in beer and it's brewing really took off. I tried to brew two kits the first of which was horrible, the second was ok but the barrel leaked all over my parents house. So I waited until I moved to Dublin to brew again. I moved to extract and boiling and the beers I've made have been good. I now appreciate good beers and will go off on odysseys to get them. I think knowing more about beer and appreciating it has actually contributed to me drinking less. I'll have a few really nice beers and because they are so full of flavour I'm happy at that. It's hard to go back to bland beer once you've tasted the decent stuff so in most pubs I don't even bother if all they have is the same old same old.