Congrats Toby Carlson!
Hello Borg, My name is Toby AKA Trollby, I am married to a lovely women named Linda for 25 years (December 27). We will be celebrating 28 years together in May 2012, we have one son Zac who is 12 going on 28 (the teens will be worse I am sure). Linda and I were born in Wisconsin, but have lived in many states from the Mid-west out to the West Coast and back. Since family is mostly in WI we ended up back here in 1990 and the rest is history.
I am a Senior Criminal Analyst for the Wisconsin Department of Justice in the Division of Criminal Investigations for the Computer Forensics Unit (formally Computer Crimes Unit). I am the Units Network and Server Specialist but I also work on Computers, Cell phones, GPS, Game consoles and Small Electronics. Anything that has memory or storage I work with. The line of work I do is very stressful, the average person only last 2-5 years before burn-out. Crimes against children is one of the toughest fields as far as stress and emotional drain on a person, so one thing that people in my line of work have to learn or be able to learn is to compartmentalize their brain, to be able to disconnect from work or it will eat you up. Our Motto is"We Exist to Assist", since our unit's main goal is to support the entire state in any computer related criminal investigations, and I have supported criminal cases from local Police to INTERPOL investigations from 3 countries.
I am honored to be chosen as Brewer of the Month after only returning to brewing 12 months ago, my original brewing started back when I was in my teens. My family always brewed beer and wine for the holidays. When I was about fourteen I started helping my uncles with this (pretty much was their gofer and washer from what I remember). I became very close to those Uncles and when I left for military duty they kept in touch better than a lot of the family members. While I was gone the uncle I was closest to was killed in a car accident, and pretty much the last batch of the family recipe was brewed by him in fall 1987. I have wanted to get brewing again and talked about it for years. Well, X-mas 2010 my wife got me the Mr.Beer kit and said "Enough talking, try it and I don't have to hear about how you want to start making your family beer again." Well little did she realize the
It was the Mr.Beer Borg that really helped me understand the LBK and how to use it to it's potential. Many here - Yankeedag, Screwy Brewer, Swenocha, BugLaden, Fedora Dave - just to name a few really made this a place for me to hang my hat. There are so many here that helped and given great advice I could spend the rest of the time naming them, but I just want to say thanks to all of you. New brewers need the support and guidance or they quit, here the knowledge is about these great kits and the LARGE variety of available refills to keep anyone happy and busy. I don't even need to say how great the Seasonal Recipes are, they just add to the family that is Mr.Beer.
I have found my taste is changing now since I am making and tasting beer at different stages, I'm understanding how it ages and balances out. I have to say the German in me still loves the Bocks, Marzens and German Lagers. Most Dark beers will be my first choice, but a good Weissbier (Wheat Beer) sure is a close second.
As far as who I would like to have a beer with or two, it is pretty hard choice between my uncle Arthur, or my Grandmother. Both would be tops to show what I am doing now and see my son, neither got to meet him and were strong influences in my life. If I had to choose only one I would choose my Grandmother, a strong German mother of a large family that liked a good strong beer with her boys during the holidays (while the rest of the family women would drink wine), she use to sneak me a taste of the beer and say "Das ist gut."
