Wanted to introduce myself, my name is Alan, I just found these forums, and will probably get a yearly membership with the brewclub soon (heck, even if I'm just buying $10 worth of beer a week from Co-op, that membership pays for itself and then-some every year in discounts). I'm primarily a mead maker, and post a lot on a big mead forum online (the biggest one I think). I started into making beer with a red braggot, and have since made a couple beers, a dark maple beer that needs some aging to mellow out, and a low ABV brown ale that tastes like garbage (trying to decide if I need 7 gallons of malt vinegar... that might be the only hope for that beer other than the drain).
Anyways, beer is my favourite beverage, specifically Belgian style ales, so I hope to jump head first into beer brewing as well. I also love the relatively short aging times for beer compared to mead, nice to be able to taste something and still remember making it! So far I've just been doing extract brewing with specialty grains added (sometimes mashed sometimes not).
I'm looking forward to learning a lot, and hopefully avoiding more junk-beer. I think the next one I attempt will be a simple gruit ale or lager (if I can keep the temp low enough for lager with just an ice bath... seems tricky) and using the spruce tips that are just now budding instead of hops.