No, really: cool. Home-brewing beer is a fun and very useful life skill to acquire: I don’t do it myself, but I am very lucky to have a good number of friends who do so, at least two of which are at a level of skill that could do it professionally. My wedding reception had home-brewed beers and wines that had my relatives marveling at how good they were: one of the people who crafted the wine told me later that several of my aunts and uncles had waylaid him at the hotel and asked if he had any more bottles of merlot available, as his was superior to the table wine that they were drinking at dinner*.
So I wish the Obamas good fortune and tasty beer as they continue… and may the President have many opportunities to practice it, starting in 2013.
Moe Lane
PS: twist-off caps (and the bottles that take them) will be your enemy; also, you absolutely must keep the tubes and carboys as clean as can be possibly managed. If you have musty beer, that’s why.
*There were not, of course. I am no fool; the leftover wine was the first thing to get packed in the car during cleanup. Admittedly, the almost two cases somehow turned into just over a case between the kitchen and the car; but you have to expect settling in transit, and you do not bind the mouths of the kine treading the grain, or cleaning up the site.