Nice.
I've been brewing beer since the beginning of this year (wife got me a small batch kit for xmas), was immediately hooked on the hobby after tasting the first batch. Coincidentally, a brew supply shop opened up just around the corner from my house about the same time that I was getting started, how convenient. 8)
I identify with John about the lack of patience thing. I haven't gotten into kegging yet, so with bottle conditioning I'm looking at about a month (at least) from brewpot to belly. Plenty of wait time for me. I find it helps to get a rotation going, so I try to always have a batch fermenting, a batch conditioning in bottles, and a batch in the fridge ready for consumption at any given time. I can't always keep it up as it is pretty time consuming. I just finished the last of my Honey Rye-P.A. a few nights ago, and I still have about a week ,maybe two, before I -should- start drinking my Bourbon Dubbel. I tasted one the other night though, after one week in the bottle (long enough to carbonate). I'm pretty excited about it, looking like it will be one of my better batches once it matures. And I'll be bottling up my Breakfast Stout about the time that the Dubbel is ready. I do have a batch of a Smoked Cherry Ale in the closet that has been aging for 6 months now, but that is the longest I have had the patience for. And I brewed that one with the intention of aging it and giving it out as xmas gifts, so the suspense hasn't completely killed me. I tried one last night though, and it is coming along freakin' nicely...
Would love to get into distilling. I saw a thing on youtube where a guy made moonshine starting with a bag of livestock feed, called "sweet feed", for the mash and added a couple bags of table sugar in the boil. I was in a Tractor Supply Co. store a few weeks back and saw the sweet feed that he used - main ingredients listed were distiller's grains and molasses. At about $6-7 for a 50 lb. bag, seemed adequate to make something with high gravity. The whole process looked pretty quick and easy, less involved with much less attention to flavor than beer, no aging process necessary. Just a bit more equipment to convert a pot to a still. Might be a little too redneck for me though. Something tells me if I'm gonna move into doing the high-test stuff I should probably observe proper technique, like proper aging, and try to make something worth drinking. I guess I'm looking more for flavor than buzz these days.
