After I decided that it was time to brew my first beer I felt an immense wave of excitement coupled with a sneaking anxiety. I was thrilled to finally be able to try brewing, something that I'd wanted to do for a long time, but I was also nervous that I'd botch it the first time. This, of course, is a concern that I'm sure every new brewer feels the first time, but mine had more of an edge. If I screwed up this first batch I'd have to wait a few more weeks/months until I could get more supplies for another beer. As I said before, there are no homebrew stores in Taiwan, so I wouldn't be able to run down the street  for another can of malt extract and some brewing sugar.

Nonetheless, I tried my hand at it anyway.

During my research previous to this first batch I found a fantastic youtube channel called Craigtube that had some great videos on how to brew with a Coopers kit for the first time, and other useful stuff. My thanks to Craig and his videos for giving me the step by step know-how I needed. Anyway, I pulled up one of Craig's videos I'd already watched about a dozen times and wrote out instructions for myself, leaving the video open and ready in case I wanted to review something. Which I did. A lot.

So, I sanitized the crap out of all of my equipment using Starsan and set my can of malt extract to warming. What followed was a slightly frenzied mixing of ingredients (which I will post below) and a few minutes of near panic at what I perceived to be mistakes that were going to ruin my beer. But, all in all it was great fun and before I was finished I couldn't wait to make another one.

The recipe: