Greetings fellow beer lovers, I am neither Randy nor Diane, I’m the daughter in law, Courtney. I hope to enthrall you with the goings on at the brewery from my own perspective. I first met Randy and Diane before I had my first official date with their son, my now husband Sam. Randy, at the time was merely a craft beer afficianado, but I was way too nervous to even pay attention to what he was drinking and cannot remember to this day because, “Oh my god we’re meeting your parents tonight?!”
I, myself have been spending my college and post college years trying to find myself and figure out what I’m going to be when I grow up. I have a BS in Environmental and Forest Biology from SUNY ESF, and the world of brewing first piqued my interest during a mycology lab, where we brewed a batch of beer, a red ale to be precise. Yeasts are after all a type of fungus. That was when wort became one of my favorite aromas. It wasn’t until a couple years later, that my friends and I went on a tour of a then expanding Stone Brewing Company, that the assistant brew master was giving us (and by us, I mean a group of chemistry geeks) a tour of the facility and I remember the zeal he described the process. “I can talk about the effects of esters on the beer and you guys actually understand what I’m talking about!” and thinking to myself, I like his passion, and I have a similar background, I should become a brewer!
I’ve helped Randy with a couple batches of beer and have made a couple batches of mead with Sam, but I have a long way to go. I have also taken it upon myself to familiarize with the wide variety of beer styles by taking notes of the beers I try at the breweries I visit. I also hope to offer my services as a laborer, and official second opinion on not only the decoration within the brewery, but also ways to make the beer better.
Cheers!