For the upcoming Febtoberfest, I've been asked to create a brief history of Hopbonkle Brewing and how it all came together. I suppose it's about time I put one together anyway so here goes.

In the summer of 2000 I pilfered a prepackaged home brewing kit from my father (he hadn't used it and it had been years since he'd gotten it) and convinced a few friends to brew with me. I was living with Sean Boyd at the time, and we were going to do it all indoors in the kitchen. I shudder to think of the equipment and knowledge we had then, but it all worked out in the end. The two friends that helped me brew I also credit for introducing me to the world of beer in the first place. These two men were John McCorkle and Steve Hopkins, (now you see, Hopbonkle=HopkinsBonkowskiMcCorkle)both former roommates of mine at 1408 E Spring. I believe Joe Tynan was present during the first brew, but nothing but a bystander. Our water supply came via a hose through the second story window; you see, the fitting wouldn't work on Seans faucet. To start the siphon of the finished product into the fermenter, we rinsed our mouths with vodka for sterilization, and suck started the hose siphon. This left my mouth feeling very very raw the next day to say the least. Even with all of this gone seemingly wrong, the beer turned out ok. It was a cinnamony flavored beer with good carbonation. Let me retrace, we used extract brewing for at least the first 5 recipes we brewed becasue we were limited by equipment. We fermented primary in a bucket, and secondary in the bottles. Now we brew full grain recipes and keg after the secondary fermentation.