After reading your post, I feel like I needed to respond as we may have more in common. Aside from sharing the same first name, I first found your Thirsty Beagle blog when searching for brewery names (Inspired by my first brew bottled). I was just messing around one day with the idea of a homebrew label names. I ended stumbling across your blog. The reason for searching beagle for a brewery label name was due to having a beagle myself. She pretty much rules my wife and I’s world, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Great dogs! So on to homebrewing and another thing in common. I too started just over a year ago and like you believed I knew a bit about beer. Looking back on it, I didn’t know very much. Homebrewing just over a year now I have gained a lot of knowledge about beer. I little my respect goes into drinking each beer now. I am also brewing all-grain and only have two under my belt. It’s definitely a learning curve as there are so many different ways to go about it. So, I brewed my second all-grain about a week ago. It too was an American Brown Ale in style. I tend to venture off in a recipes and the proper style,but what I do seems to turn out. That said, my American Brown Ale has turned into a Raspberry Brown Ale. I got the idea from a Lost Coast Brewery beer called Raspberry Brown. Once the brown Ale is done fermenting I will be adding Raspberry puree to the secondary next week. All that said, I feel that I had a connection to your blog and wanted to share a snippet of my experience. Beagles and Brews. Two things in my life that I love.

Cheers to brewing beers!

Nick