Art of dating dating tips dating singles online single Resources to include: Date ideas , Relationship articles , Love articles . A nice way to spend the day together is by brewing some beer! Brewing beer isn't that complicated, and it can be a fun activity. Plus getting to try what you've made is really rewarding. Plus, once you get past the initial costs (brewing kit) it's pretty inexpensive. However, depending on who your partner is/how much they like drinking beer, this could either be extremely romantic or very dangerous (think 'date night with Jack Black in The School of Rock'). What do I need? To brew beer you need some equipment; though nothing too fancy. You can buy a starter kit for about $80, it will provide you with the basics you need to start brewing—things like bottles, caps, thermometer… If you plan on doing this frequently you might want to invest in some more equipment, but that is entirely up to personal preference. A good place to check out all the equipment is at Northern Brewer . Just bear in mind that they are based out of Minnesota so shipping isn't always cheap depending where you live. You'll also have to pick up some ingredients. The great part is that many homebrew supply stores allow people to mix and match their own ingredient kits (i.e.: each ingredient kit has everything required that the recipe calls for). This allows for a huge range of creativity. Keep in mind that just because you can pick your own ingredients, that doesn't mean you have to. Typically these supply stores will have a bunch of pre-made ingredient kits available, so if you want to experiment with something new just ask for advice from the staff. There's also the question of what kind of beer to brew? This depends entirely on how much effort you are willing to put into it. A great place to start is by looking at clone recipes . Clone recipes are based off actual commercially available beers (for example: You could also look into partial mash or all grain recipes depending on how intricate you want to get. Brewing beer isn't an overnight task, it takes about 5-6 hours from start to finish (more if you're doing multiple beers). There's certainly a bit of time commitment involved. You can make a batch with a buddy fairly easily in a day if you both commit yourself to getting it done in time. Once the brewing process is finished and your beer has fermented properly, you will have to wait around two weeks before bottling . If transferring the beer to bottles sounds like too much work for an activity date, look into kegging systems . Kegging allows you to carbonate and serve your beer without having it bottled—this means that there's no bottling or waiting aro und for your beer to carbonate. The last step is tasting your creation! It's always best to take notes before you share with friends or anything like that, so get a few bottles for yourselves and do[removed]ent what you liked/didn't like about the beer. If it turns out well then be sure to toast to your dating success! What should I know beforehand? Brewing isn't too complicated, but there are some things that you need in order to execute properly. First of all, treating water in certain ways can make or break a particular brew—it needs to have certain parameters checked in order for the yeast to ferment properly (i.e.: not producing weird off flavors). If you're interested in learning more about how different types of water affect beers then I highly recommend checking out the book Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers by John Palmer and Colin Kaminsky . You also need to know what kind of yeast to use. There are so many different types of yeast out there that it's impossible to cover all of them—generally you should pick a beer style based on what type of yeast it typically uses, but if this seems daunting you can always check with your homebrew supply store. Once you have all your equipment, ingredients, and information together you're good to go! It's important to note that while the brewing process itself doesn't require too much effort, cleaning up after yourself is really tedious work. If both partners are into the idea then great! But be sure that you each feel the same about the dating activity. What should I do on our date? Go through all of your equipment and make sure you have everything. If not, then either go buy whatever's missing or pick up/drop off whatever needs to be done (i.e.: drop off additional ingredients at supplier). You can even get rid of any unused items if it makes sense for both parties to not use them in the future—this saves space! Start boiling water to sanitize your equipment while discussing the dating topic at hand (or anything else!). Sanitization is an important step because it removes any potential contaminants from your brew kettle, carboy, fermentation bucket, etc. Using unsanitized equipment couldund for the