Just found this forum the other day. Looks like a nice place to be. In addition to being a gun nut, I brew beer - slightly less expensive than drinking the finest beer that grad student money can buy... at least if you ignore equipment upgrades.
Only to assistant brewers!
It's actually pretty easy to make good beer... But very difficult to make great beer consistently. So far I'm just in stage 1. About 20+ batches under my belt (and these days a little over my belt).