diesel’s journal

I have begun an experiment in apartment hops growing.  In New York land is hard to come by, so I am growing a single rhizome of Centennial hops in a planter in a window of a 4th floor walk-up.  It’s an East facing window, with a 27″ x 12″ planter.  The hops were planted a couple weeks ago and have been showing some nice growth so far.  Here are a couple of images taken recently.

Full Moon Hops

Springtime Hops

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Intown – Where It All Began

I suppose the proper place to start is the beginning. I was in college, living in a townhouse with 4 other guys. For the past half-decade or so I had been dumping spare change into a gallon gatorade jug and using it as a doorstop. I counted it out at $300 and decided to use the “found” money as start-up funds for a new hobby. Homebrewing won out for obvious reasons: it meant we got to drink more beer, just for the sake of drinking more beer, ain’t college great? My housemate had a 3 gallon chili pot in which he had never made chili but was kind enough to let me borrow as a brew kettle. This made my $300 go even further and for on the order of $100 I had a very basic starter kit and two ingredient kits. One quick piece of advice, when first starting out get two ingredient kits. Either you make a big mistake on the first one and need the backup, or you are able to ferment the second batch while the first is carbonating giving you double the stock if you plan properly for the inaugural party.

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But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

freshly poured brown ale

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