So who is this guy anyway?

It's a fair question to ask. I'm claiming to be "the beer guy," but what credentials do I really have and what makes me act like I have any real knowledge of beer and food?

As my profile says, I'm a middle aged suburban guy who likes food and beer. Some people probably have visions of a guy with BBQ'd Little Smokies and a can of Bud, but I like to think I'm a little more sophisticated. So here's a brief bio.

I've always loved to cook, and I've always been someone who likes to do things from scratch. Couple that with the fact that I've never had wads of money, so I've always been someone who was willing to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make the haute cuisine meals that I had only read about in cooking magazines and cookbooks.

I had the random fortune of falling into a job in the retail wine industry right after college in the late 1980's. Wine was just starting to take off in the US, and I worked at two of the best New York City area wine stores for a little more than six years. I drank a lot of great wine (1928 Ch. Palmer anyone?), attended some amazing tasting in some of the best restaurants in NYC, met a lot of people with much more advanced palates, and learned a lot about food and wine.

In the early 1990's I moved to the Pacific Northwest, with visions of learning to make great Pinot Noir, but all of my wine connections fell through and I ended up doing something totally unrelated, although I still drank a lot of great wine. When I moved here, I remember writing a good friend that "I could eat the local food and produce, drink the local beer and wine for the rest of my life and never feel I was missing out on anything from anywhere else."

I had always liked good beer, but NY in the late 1980's and early 1990's wasn't a great time for beer. There were a few good regional beers, but nothing like the Pacific NW, which is still Beervana to this day. The switch from primarily "wine guy" to primarily "beer guy" happened several years later when I was switching careers and tight of money. A friend taught me to brew beer from an extract kit and I was hooked. Seven years later, I've brewed about 330 all grain batches of beer, I'm a nationally ranked beer judge (http://www.bjcp.org), and I've switched primarily to being a "beer guy."

I've never cooked professionally, although I did some kitchen work when I was in high school. I'm a home cook and generally know my limits, but that doesn't prevent me from trying some pretty daring things at times. Several years ago, I went through a pretty serious period of home cheese making and have since moved into a fair amount of charcuterie. I make my own bacon, pancetta, sausages and have stared with some homemade hams. I collect cookbooks obsessively and actually read them cover to cover, but I don't actually cook from recipes.

Food, beer and wine is a hobby, but a serious one. You have to eat everyday. Eating and cooking can be one more point of drudgery in your life or it can be something that makes life special. I try for the latter.

So that's a brief descritpion of who "the beer guy" is.