My wife gave me a homebrew starter kit for my birthday, and I fired up my first batch last night. My first impression is it's just like cooking, but messier. The whole house smells like Grape-Nuts. The fermenter is happily bubbling away.

It turns out that Everything to Everyone by Barenaked Ladies (a birthday present from my four-year-old daughter—she's a big fan of "If I Had $1,000,000") is good music by which to make beer, the way the soundtrack from The Big Chill is good music by which to cook pasta for a lot of people. I look forward to trying this with other albums.