Life is hard!
Big picture stuff, huh!
From the beginning, everything we do is difficult. We’re born and the proverbial life clock starts ticking. Childhood is all about learning about what not to do; after you’ve already done it. Think about how many times you heard, “It’s for your own good.” Teenagers are nature’s oddities much like carnival sideshow freaks on steroids. Being a teenager is about as uncomfortable as eating raw oysters, standing in a bucket of prunes, naked except for the sign around your neck which states that you love velour, while in front of 40,000 people at Wrigley Field. Oh, and I forgot to mention that your Grandmother is walking through the stands showing everyone the new underwear which she made for you embroidered over and over again with, “Light My Fire!”
And so far we’ve only discussed approximately a quarter of your eventual life!
Adulthood is such a peach. The following words adequately describe the next fifty-five years of our lives. College. Inebriation. Graduation. Debt. Unemployment. Employment. Engagement. Marriage. Home-ownership. Debt. Relocation. Parenthood. Promotion. Blackberry. Nuclear-Family. Weight-Gain. Cynicism. Weight-Loss. Viagra. Surgery. Flirtation. Temptation. Termination. Unemployment. Debt. Estrangement. Divorce. Regret. Cancer. Retirement. Suspicion. Bitterness. Death.
Did I mention that life is hard? The irony is that the older we become, the more we wax philosophical for our teenage years.
Life is a speeding car with black-out windows. You only see what’s in front of you and miss everything else as it goes flying by. Don’t believe me? Here’s a simple example. Go to a movie with your friends, significant other, spouse or children and turn off your communication device of choice for just two hours. Now…what’s the first thing that you want to do when the movie is over? Give up? That’s right, turn on your cell phone out of some unidentifiable urge to reconnect to the grid. I double dog dare you to not check your phone, once, while dining with family during your next evening out together.
Psychobabble, you say!
What does this have to do with beer and home brewing, you mutter!
See that’s just the point. Why would we do anything else in our prospective, difficult-laden lives which would make something completely effortless, completely problematic? Keep it simple, stupid! Sound advice and yet so absolutely ignored by us home brewers on a regular basis. The most uncomplicated path would be to simply drive to the store and purchase your beer of choice already ice cold; readily drinkable. We jump back in the car, take the five minute drive home, plunk ourselves down in our comfy chair, pop the top and imbibe at will. Repeat process at end of six-pack, twelve-pack or case. Ah, satisfaction and gratification.
Not us home brewers. Recalcitrant and stubborn, we spend hours formulating, researching, discussing, acquiring, cleaning, sanitizing, brewing, recleaning, fermenting, waiting, transferring, waiting, bottling, waiting for our concoction to mature to drinkability. Brew days can exceed ten hours from start to finish. Spouses roll their eyes at the allusion of beer. Neighbors lock their doors and unplug their phones so as not to hear about how you are going to challenge the craft brew industry with your latest batch of Applewood Smoked Butternut Squash Ale. Want banishment from the next neighborhood meeting? Become a home brewer with a propensity to adequately describe every hop variety grown throughout the world for the third or fourth time to everyone within earshot.
John Wayne is given credit for the following quote. “Life is hard; it’s harder if you’re stupid!”
I think that adequately describes what we do as brewers of beer. Hard does not begin to describe what it takes to brew an average beer. Stupid does not begin to express my voluntary choice to participate in this hobby.
I would not have it any other way.
Matthew Cary, a.k.a Scone
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