Our Featured Brewer, Summer 2010

Gabe
Meet the first in our series of Featured Brewers, Gabe Haynes. Gabe won our Best in Show contest at our third HBX Exchange Party on July 18th 2010. Come meet Gabe--and some samples of her art--at Homebrew Exchange on August 19th 6-8pm (Kenton Third Thursday).
Keep reading for our full interview...

How many years have you been brewing?
Three or four years, though only developing my own recipes for the last 6 months or so.

What type of brewing (all grain/extract)?
 I'm an extract/mini mash brewer .

What do you currently have fermenting?
Strawberry hefe that is bottle conditioning.  As far a general ferments, I've also got some kimchi and kombucha abrewin' too!

Do you keg/bottle?
I bottle...I've always found the whole bottle conditioning process so magical- all you need to do is add a little sugar and a lid and the yeast gives you fizz!  Its so naturally ingenious, why screw around with putting CO2 in your beer if the beer will do it on its own given the opportunity?

What are you currently have on tap/in the refrigerator?
Currently in the fridge are a couple of my belgian IPA, and all grain IPA  and a 2009 oatmeal stout sent to me by a brewing buddy in Missouri, and y'alls (Aaron from HBX) death by coffee stout.

How did you start brewing?
For someone who's been around beer all my life, I really was late getting into doing it myself.  My father has been brewing and distilling for about as long as I remember, but I guess it was one of those male-bonding things he did with his friends, so I wasn't really exposed to the process much. I worked at a microbrewery (on the pub grub serving side of things) for years before I could legally drink the stuff I served.  At that point I learned a lot about beer styles, but of course even brew-pub scale brewing is very different that home-scale brewing.  It wasn't until I was given a homebrew started kit by an in-law for Christmas in '06 or '07 that I really started to think "Hey, I should make my own crazy beer!"

Do you have favorite beer to brew?
I haven't been brewing long enough to feel like i need to repeat any recipes yet!  My current interests/beer plans lie in ferments that feature locally grown produce, and indigenous brews.