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Hi!
I emailed Linda Southern at Grape and Grain and she directed me to you. My name is John Stromberger and I have been homebrewing for nearly 20 years. Most of what I know has been learned via trial and error during that time, but I can honestly say that I now make a pretty good American Pale Ale, Wit, and Brown Ale. I’ve more recently been dabbling around a bit with lagers as well as lambics and wood aged strong ales. I am actively involved with our homebrew club here in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA (Liquid Poets).

My wife is a college professor at Colorado State University in the United States and she applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to study soil science at the University College Dublin for the spring 2009 term. We just recently learned that she was awarded the scholarship, so we’ll be relocating to Dublin in January 2009 for approximately 6 months. During this time I have no real firm plans, other than to spend time with our young son, but I would like to get involved with some aspect of micro and home brewing. I’ll miss brewing a great deal while I’m away from home and can't imagine not being somehow involved with it for 6 months.

Are there quite a number of homebrewers in Dublin? We have about 50-60 members in our club in a city of about 150,000 people, maybe 100 brewers total. Fort Collins has several exceptional microbreweries, so there might be a disproportionally large number of homebrewers here, I don’t know. Linda indicated to me that there weren't homebrew clubs really in Ireland. Do you have interactions with each other? Get together to brew once in a while? Try each others beers?

I was excited to see that you have a pretty active forum here. I'd love to be involved if that's ok! It would be nice to develop some interactions with fellow brewers before we arrive in Ireland. I have found homebrewers in the US to be an extremely knowledgable and generous lot and from what I can see in your forum, that appears to be the case here as well. I look forward to participating here and possibly meeting some fellow homebrewers when we arrive!
Cheers.
John aka Ramfan
John

Hi John, and welcome.

I think the answer to most of your questions is in the threads somewhere, and the memberlist will give you an idea how many of us are in Dublin (though not how many of us actually make beer).

I suspect this site is the nearest thing to a homebrew club we have.

Dive in, let us know how the move goes, and join us for a beer in the Bull & Castle when you're over.

Welcome aboard:D , we must again a meet in the bull and castle when your over

Welcome John.

I think you'll find that the micro scene here is not as healthy as at home, it's a small segment but growing. The same applies for homebrewing; while there are no formal clubs that I know of this site helps some of us to get together for tasting sessions from time to time - as has already been mentioned the Bull & Castle is our unofficial meeting point and they have been kind enough to host a couple of tasting nights for us. It sounds like you have a lot of knowledge to share with us so we look forward to meeting you <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

welcome john
As the lads mentioned there is a smaller homebrew scene here in Ireland but it is Growing, I always look forward to hear your views on brewing and how the scene differs in the U.S. and Ireland.
Cheers
BITR

Welcome John,

Great to have you join us I am sure with your experience you can contribute greatly to this informal group. Many of us myself included are relatively new to brewing.

APA is a style of beer that is very popular with most of our members. Don’t forget to pack a few Colorado beers for tasting next January <!-- s:wink: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s:wink: -->