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Hi all,

I've been reading here for the last week and joined up today. This is a great website and a great resource for irish home brewers.
I'm just starting this home brewing lark and have made a couple of kits in the past year none of which were terribly good. This was before I started seriously reading up about what I should be doing and now I know where I was going wrong (I think!). So for the summer I hope to build up more kit and start extract and mini mash brewing. I just purchased a gigantic pot in TK Maxx so that should help <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->
I love beer and want to see how good my own stuff can be. I also like the odd pint and trying out new beers. Some of my favourites are Samuel Adams, Spatan Oktoberfest, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Porterhouse celebration stout, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, red ales (my quest for the perfect one continues). I'm also interested in the history of beer especially gruit and using wierd herbs in place of hops. Hence the name Bog Myrtle as it's a traditional irish beer herb and one the three used in gruit. If anyone has made any let me know what it turned out like.
As well I'm wondering if there are any other irish lady homebrewers out there? In a reverse of the usual I'm the one poking around the shed looking for spare copper and muttering things like I could turn this into a wort chiller <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

I'll continue to use your expertise and hopefully I might have some to contribute too.

Bog Myrtle

Welcome to the site! I´m relatively new to this too, I´ve just made my first extract brew after a kit, which turned out pretty well thanks to the advice I got here. Do not hesitate to ask whatever comes to your mind, there are people here with an impressive knowledge and, more importantly, they are willing to share it,

Cheers,
Xabi

Hi, welcome.

I have precisely no brewing expertise to pass on, but I just wanted to say I [i:2cpdenba]love[/i:2cpdenba] non-hopped beers. Alba (made with Scotch pine) is one of my favourites. Last year I encountered a New Zealand beer made with rimu and tea tree, which was delightfully bizarre.

More of this kind of thing.

&amp;quot;Bog_Myrtle&amp;quot;:33tfxw98 wrote: I've been reading here for the last week and joined up today. This is a great website and a great resource for irish home brewers.
I'm just starting this home brewing lark and have made a couple of kits in the past year none of which were terribly good. This was before I started seriously reading up about what I should be doing and now I know where I was going wrong (I think!). So for the summer I hope to build up more kit and start extract and mini mash brewing. I just purchased a gigantic pot in TK Maxx so that should help <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->
I love beer and want to see how good my own stuff can be. I also like the odd pint and trying out new beers. Some of my favourites are Samuel Adams, Spatan Oktoberfest, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Porterhouse celebration stout, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, red ales (my quest for the perfect one continues). I'm also interested in the history of beer especially gruit and using wierd herbs in place of hops. Hence the name Bog Myrtle as it's a traditional irish beer herb and one the three used in gruit. If anyone has made any let me know what it turned out like.
As well I'm wondering if there are any other irish lady homebrewers out there?[/quote:33tfxw98]
Great name! Are you also known as Sweet Gale (just like Bog Myrtle)? <!-- s:lol: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt="" title="Laughing" /><!-- s:lol: -->

Have you ever tasted bog myrtle? It is lovely. Fraoch uses bog myrtle and is one of my favourite beers.

Aled Murphy, a member of Scottish Craft Brewers, is keen on using all sorts of odd ingredients and his brews are invariably very tasty in my experience. If you want to pick his brain you could do worse than registering with the SCB newsgroup at [url:33tfxw98]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scottishcraftbrewers/join[/url:33tfxw98] and posting a question there (I'm not sure if my e-mail address for him is up to date). I've just realised that I should see him (and hopefully sample some of his brews) on Thursday. <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

AFAIK, you are the second female brewer here. There's also microgirl.

Welcome to the group.

Cheers, Les

Hey, welcome <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

I'm fairly new to the community as well, and of absolutely no help to you except as a guinea pig (I'll taste pretty much anything purporting to be beer, the more unusual the better - just ask sbillings <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->) as I don't actually brew myself. Yet.

But mostly I'm just replying to this to say "Woooo! Another girl! Yay!" <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Adeptus - t-shirt idea. "Real women drink Real Ale!" (or beer, if that's better) <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

Welcome to Irish Craft Brewer Bog Myrtle! <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

It's good to see another woman on board, and especially a brewer! I think your interest in the non-hopped beers will bring yet another valuable point of view to the group. Actually, I had been thinking about buying a book called the Brewers Garden which apparently goes into brewing herbs and things you can grow easily yourself. I don't think I've tried any beer using these herbs (apart from Fraoch actually, which I tried a few years ago while in Edinburgh) but I'm always willing to give any beer a go! <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

Anyway, good to have you on board! <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

<edit>oh, microgirl, I'll look into more t-shirt designs soon <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->