I started brewing beer with my old man just after I finished high school in the mid 1980s. Made my way from kits to DME recipes and eventually to all grain. Was lucky to brew once a month during the cooler months back then. Sadly I stopped brewing when I moved to China in 2003.
In 2007 I was fortunate to meet a Brew Master from Germany who now works for Poulaner. He was willing to help me out with raw materials until I could source them here. It took me and 'Grasshopper' nearly a year to build up the brewing equipment to take our Brew Master friend up on his offer but eventually we had the basics and haven't stopped adding pieces of kit since then.
Now we have so much brewing stuff we have rented a 3 bedroom rooftop apartment to house the brewery and our mountain bikes, bike stand and tools etc. We refer to it as our 'Man Cave'. Aside from the bike equipment, the 6 burner stainless steel BBQ and the chili garden the 'Man Cave' houses a combination meat grinder sausage stuffer, a 20 ton apple press, 150L HLT, 100L insulated mash tun, 200L boiling pot, plate chiller, 2 conical fermenters with water chillers (80L &130L), 3 chest freezers for lagering/serving, 2 standard CO2 faucets, a stout tap, a soda fountain, CO2 bottle, 70/30% mixed gas bottle, O2 bottle, 0.5 micron diffuser, magnetic stir plate with 4 liter flask for yeast starters and 20 corny kegs with another 10 on the way. The CIP pump stand is nearly finished for the 130L fermenter that came with a CIP ball and the plans for the keg cleaning machine are not far from being ready to sign off. Did I mention that we are 'Gear Heads"?.
We are currently brewing twice a month and getting 4-6 kegs a shot. We like to keep a light and a dark beer on tap all the time as well as a stout on our mixed gas faucet and soda water in our soda fountain. You can often find a keg or two of hard cider hanging around the aging room during the spring and summer months.
The more beer we make the more popular we are with the expat community here in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Will be bringing 3 flavors to a party this weekend. It is a good thing taxis are cheap and easy to find in this part of the world.