Dave Fleming discovered homebrewing before most of today's probrewers were even born."It was 1982 and I was a junior in high school," says Fleming, recalling his introduction to the world of beer. "My Dad was a ferocious reader and I saw this book he had just purchased "Gourmet Guide to Beer" by Howard Hillman. The book listed 500 different types of beer from around the world. I was blown away."Today, Fleming is one of Oregon's most well respected brewers with stints at breweries all around the state. With over 20 years as a professional brewer, his experience is often called for at new and old breweries alike as he has developed a professional brewery consulting resume that's enviable. Fleming also founded this Saturday's NW Coffee Beer Invitational brew fest five years ago.This is chapter fourteen in a monthly-ish series in which we check in with brewers on what they are drinking, eating, enjoying and what’s currently bubbling away in their fermenters.Fleming grew up in New England and discovered European imports like so many beer afficionados of the previous generation, before we had breweries in every city it was beers like Guinness, Bass, Newcastle, John Courage."Whitbread and Watney's Red Barrel were all readily available along with all the domestic swill, but I had no idea there were that many beers in the world," recalls Fleming, who remembers being fascinated by the scoring. "The book also rated the beers from one to five stars. For example Olympia received one star and Salvator from Paulner received 5 stars...I longed for my first taste of this "rare" Dopplebock."Fleming started homebrewing against his mothers wishes when he was in High School. He told his mother that Jimmy Carter had legalized homebrewing in 1976 and he had the right to produce 200 gallons of beer per year. She warned him that he may be able to produce it, but wasnt allowed to drink it and his operation was shut down. Even attempts to bootleg the operation taking it on the road to his schoolmate friend Mark's home was shut down.It wasn't until a few years later when Fleming was in college that he was able to successfully homebrew and imbibe his own beers.  He was living in a college dorm room when he purchased all of his equipment but quickly found that he didnt have the tubing to fit the dorm room sink to run water into his 5 gallon glass carboy."Finally it dawned on me; remove the shower head from the hard pipe and fill the carboy that way. Shower Stall Stout anyone?" Fleming fondly remembers those times clearly. "It actually turned out pretty good (I guess if you boil anything long enough…)"Fleming came to Oregon in the early nineties, he majored in Geomorphology at Portland State University until Measure 5 passed and he lost hist college internship money. In '91 Fleming started working at Bridgeport Brew Pub to pay the bills, he was already a regular at the bar when front of house manager Tim Healey drafted him onto the softball team and later gave him a job. Fleming worked at Bridgeport until 1994 when fellow co-worker Gary Geist and Alex Stiles decided to leave and found Lucky Labrador Brew Pub. Fleming started as the Lab's first pub manager and two years later, (January 6th 1996 to be exact) Dave brewed his first solo made professional batch of beer - "and I haven't looked back since."These days Fleming brews at Oregon City's Coin Toss Brewing, is the lead brewing consultant at Kells Brewery and has also been assisting the monks at Mt. Angel's Benedictine Brewery. In his spare time he has side projects with local breweries improving their process and labor efficiencies in the brewery.