About Us

Mike

My passion for beer was an unexpected one. I didn't actually start drinking beer until my later college years and, even then, it was only American light lagers. Luckily, down the street from UVM's campus was a great craft brewery - Magic Hat. Thanks to them and some other Vermont craft breweries (Long Trail, Otter Creek and Rock Art), I began to understand the magnitude of beer diversity and to appreciate the immense potential that existed for high-quality delicious beers.

When I returned home to Massachusetts in 2004, I began exploring different breweries and different styles. Quickly, browns and stouts became standout favorites though I began to acquire a taste for the bitterness of high alpha acid American hops.

In 2006, I was invited to accompany my sister and brother-in-law to Deja Brew, a brew-on-premises site that provides recipes, ingredients and equipment for brewing your own beer. I'd never thought about doing anything like this before, but I was immediately intrigued by the possibilities as I rummaged through their recipe catalog. And then, as soon as I smelled the warm cereal scent of the grains steeping in hot water, and the spicy, citrusy grassy smell of the hop pellets, I became hooked. This was something I wanted to continue doing.

After that brew, I talked with my long-time childhood friend Eric about joining me the next time I went. From that point, we made several trips to Deja Brew and made some delicious beers. But that, as it would prove, would not be enough to satisfy our need to brew.

Eric

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8th Hill Brewery

After a number of brews at Deja Brew, we decided we wanted to get even more hands-on with the beers we made. We sprung for a $60 homebrew kit that included a plastic fermentation bucket, a plastic bottling bucket, a racking cane, a bottling tip, some sanitizer powder and little else that we can recall. We found a local homebrew supply shop and purchased our first ingredient kit for a Pale Ale. This beer wound up getting infected and had to be thrown away, and we quickly learned the hard way the value of proper sanitization of all our equipment before and after brewing.

We followed up with another ingredient kit, which again left us looking for more personal input and control over our beers. Afterward we began devising all of our own recipes and started to feel more pride in the end results, especially when they wound up being good.

Us with our HERM system, circa 2010

After five extract-based brews we made the jump to all-grain brews. Our first few were inhibited by some hand-made equipment that didn't work quite so well. However, when we finalized construction of our HERM (Heat Exchange Recirculating Mash) system, our process became more streamlined and efficient and, as a result, produced better and more consistent beers. We continued in this fashion for quite some time, having a great time every brew day whilst enjoying the fruits of past labors.

In 2010, Mike moved away to Boston to live with his then girlfriend (since wifed). As a result of this downsizing, a lot of the HERM system had to be dismantled and some had to be discarded due to the availability of storage space. After that, we would brew one more time, a year later, before life caught up with us.

In 2012, Mike got married and Eric expanded his family for the first time. Free time to brew was suddenly disappearing. Despite Mike having moved back to Worcester, it proved exceedingly difficult to get schedules to coincide for the hours it would take to brew. Things got dismal.

However, in June 2014, we legitimately found time to brew one day and so, after a three year absence, we jumped back into the fray. We began making sincere efforts to find time to brew, which was made all the easier with the strong support of our loving wives. 

Now, with families growing and time becoming more rare with each passing week, it's more difficult than ever to find time to brew. However, we've also become more determined than ever to make this work and look forward to the next few years (and beyond), as they should inevitably be filled to the brim with homebrew.