I’ve made beer about a dozen times, with varying results with technique, recipe style, quality of ingredients, and helping hands being the major contributing factors. The first few times I brewed was with my dad – starting out as brewing equipment and ingredient kits given as gifts for birthdays or christmas, and then evolving into a very loose tradition, brewing when I returned home from college, and later from my home a few states away. Initial results were good, if a bit lackluster – little things like too much or too little carbonation or yeast settling in the bottoms of bottles detracted from the experience, but to my memory, we never needed to dump a batch.

That record faltered when I started brewing again after returning to Vermont. A coworker of mine was giving away a homebrew kit, so I jumped on it so that I could get back into brewing. The first concoction brewed with this kit, dubbed First Draught, was downright nasty. The key detail that defined this disaster was the lid; when left atop the pot when boiling the grains to make the wort, impurities and undesirable compounds that are normally carried away by the escaping steam are instead condensed on the lid and drip back into the wort, imparting a strange vegetable-y taste to the final product. At least that’s how I understand it… This batch of beer would’ve only been drinkable by an underage college student desperate for a buzz, and that’s probably even a stretch. First Draught marked my first total loss of a batch of beer.

With the lessons learned, I set out to try again – this time attempting to brew a blackberry wheat inspired by Longtrail Brewing Co.’s homophonic offering. Dutifully following the hop schedule, very purposefully leaving the lid off the pot, initial tastings as we poured into the primary fermentation vessel yielded hope that drinkable beer would be ready to enjoy by the early summer (2022). Unfortunately, First Draught wasn’t done with us yet – whatever caused it to have that gnarly taste had leeched into the plastic of the fermenter, and then back out into the blackberry wheat, imparting a diminished but unmistakable funk. After suffering through a few bottles, I pulled the plug, tossing the remainder, and the suspect fermenter.

Luck, or maybe experience, would make the third attempt a success. Taking no chances by using a new fermenter and having a few gallons of distilled water on hand to top off the wort (and help it cool) rather than chancing it with tap water, I was sure that the maple porter about to be brewed would be a return to the historical success I’ve had with homebrew adventures. Although there was an unseen challenge in the form of a frozen hose spigot (blocking the use of a wort chiller since my sink doesn’t have a hose hookup), we pulled through and created what ended up being a legitimately good beer. I’m leaning towards calling it Beer Blanket, partially due to its high-ish proof (~7%), and partially to give a nod to the weather in which it was brewed