It all started back the late 1980's, I think it was, with Steve Kirish, Bill Barton and me, flippantly calling ourselves the Three Stooges and making Three Stooges Beer. We purchased kits from R & R Home Fermentation Supplies (which long ago closed down) and made several batches of beer. I don't remember a lot of the details, but I do remember making several batches that were quite good.
Now this was in the great Central Valley of California, in the greater Sacramento area. Summer temperatures often top 100 degrees, and even with air conditioning, indoor temperatures tend around 80. I remember brewing a lager, and in order to manage the termperature during primary fermentation, we placed the fermentation bucket in a bathtub and filled it with cold water. As the temperature started approaching 70 degrees, I would pull a couple of gallon milk jugs out of the freezer and slosh them around in the tub until the the temperature got down to 60 degrees. I seem to remember I could get away with doing this twice a day, and the beer turned out great.
Somewhere in the early '90s, I moved to Hawaii. I started collecting bottles with the intent of brewing, but with no brew buddiess there, I never managed a batch. The bottles got all moldy out on my back porch and I chucked them.
Fast forward to the late '90s. I had dropped brewing Jim Lappin
Beer Fact In 1600, the German Order of Temperance, an anti-drinking
group, mandated that it's members drink no more than seven glasses of
alcoholic beverages at one sitting. They further admonished that there
should be no more than two such sessions in a day.
365 Bottles of Beer for the Year calendar, August 8, 2002