Homebrewing Goes Mainstream
Homebrewing
Simply calling homebrewing a hobby does it a disservice. In the past three and a half decades or so, it has evolved to a level of sophistication that rivals some commercial operations.
The American Homebrewers Association (AHA), founded in 1978—operated as a division of the Brewers Association—now boasts a membership roster 43,000 names long. But even that number is a bit small considering how many Americans brew their own beer. At AHA’s last count, there were 1.5 million people taking the brew-your-own route.
That’s pretty impressive, considering the fact that homebrewing hasn’t even been legal all that long. When the Twenty-first Amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933, it not only legalized the production, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages again, but it allowed for home wine making. However, it made no such allowances for those who might want to produce their own beer. It was quite an oversight and one that wouldn’t be addressed and rectified for another forty-five years.
In 1978, then President Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337, a bill sponsored by Senator Alan Cranston of California, which created an exemption from taxation for beer brewed for personal or family use and effectively legalized homebrewing on a federal level. Of course, it was up to the individual states, as well, since the Twenty-first Amendment gave them authority to regulate alcohol. It took a while to get all fifty states on board. Alabama and Mississippi were the last hold outs, but both finally made homebrewing legal some eighty years after the repeal of Prohibition. When Mississippi’s law took effect on July 1, 2013, it marked the first day since Prohibition that the entire country allowed homebrewing at the state level.
Much has changed since that ragtag band of hobbyists finally got to flex their creative muscles in the clear light of day after hiding for so long in the shadows. (Okay, maybe things weren’t that dramatic pre-legality, but what’s wrong with a little fanciful romance every now and again?)
Aside from an exponential increase in the number of individuals engaging in the hobby, there are far fewer hurdles to jump over to join in the fun. For one thing, it’s a lot easier to get supplies. Most major metro areas have at least one, if not multiple, brick-and-mortar homebrew supply shops dealing in all of the necessary equipment and raw materials to make a decent beer. And those not fortunate enough to live close to such an establishment will encounter an embarrassment of riches when they Google “online homebrew shops.”
“Any true barriers have been obliterated because of the availability of equipment, ingredients, and information,” says Beer Judge Certification Program president Gordon Strong, who’s written several books on homebrewing. “That’s kind of the trifecta of easy access into the hobby. Anyone who wants to brew can brew right away and there are so many other people doing it.”
The Internet hasn’t just made it easier for homebrewers to find all of the necessary supplies; it’s simplified the process of finding each other. Especially in less populous areas, it was largely a solitary activity. The early adopters would have to wait for national and regional homebrew conferences to meet likeminded individuals and actually talk on the telephone in the interim.
But this isn’t devolving into a “Kids today have it so easy”-style rant. The reality is actually quite the contrary. For one thing, homebrewing is such a mature hobby that the game has seriously been upped.
Many supposed amateurs often are quite far from it. Much of what the upper echelons of the homebrewing subculture produce is often superior to some of the stuff that’s commercially available.
Back in the day there was a lot of, “Wow, you made your own beer!” These days it’s more, “Which hop varieties did you use? Did they grow in the Yakima Valley?” or “There’s a pronounced astringency with this brew,” and “Hmm, I’m detecting some diacetyl in this batch.”
It’s a much tougher crowd.
However, it’s also much more supportive crowd. As daunting as it may be for a newbie to brew his or her first batch when the vast majority of DIY-ers are far more advanced and can brew circles around all who enter, there’s a massive support structure from which to draw. If the novice runs into problems early on, a solution is just a tweet, Facebook status update, or a Skype or message board post away.
Homebrewers’ motivations may have shifted a bit in the past decade and a half or so. While it’s always been about passion for beer and the joy of creation, in the early days some got into homebrewing because of the absence of better options available.
The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) always draws a crowd at GABF.
Some of the greatest commercial breweries in the modern era got their start when there weren’t better options for its founders to drink. A classic case is Steve Hindy, cofounder of the Brooklyn Brewery. As a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press for five and a half years in the Middle East, Islamic law pretty much rendered any and all alcohol drinking options nonexistent. Some American envoys in Saudi Arabia had grown accustomed to brewing their own beer, a skill they happily shared with Hindy. When he returned to the states, he started brewing at his home in Brooklyn.
“People start looking to do things themselves when they don’t have good alternatives,” Strong notes.
Four thousand commercial breweries later, it goes without saying that that is hardly the case anymore. It’s almost entirely about passion these days.
So, how does a complete brewing virgin make that first step into the hobby?
A better question would be, are you starting with malt extract, a partial mash, or are you jumping in with both feet and brewing with an all-grain recipe? The first option is definitely the more beginner-friendly of the options. For starters, it requires the smallest initial equipment investment. When it’s in extract form, the sugars already have been pulled from the grains and they’re more concentrated. Extract takes up a lot less space than whole grains and there’s no need for the mechanisms to mash down those grains (which means it’s less time-consuming, as well). In addition to a fermenting vessel that’s impervious to oxygen—known as a carboy—all you really need for a rudimentary extract brew is a pot that’s big enough—say, twenty quarts—for boiling water.
But perhaps more critical than the lower equipment outlay with extract brewing, the screw-up factor is greatly diminished as well. Since the fermentable sugars are already there, there’s far less chance of error in the process of extracting them from the grain.
However, despite the lower infrastructure investment, the long-term cost of extract brewing may be greater if it’s something the new brewer intends to do a lot, as extract is pricier than grain. There’s also something less “hands-on” about making an all-extract beer. With all-grain, you virtually own the entire process, from mashing to bottling.
The middle-ground, of course, is the partial-grain route, which kind of gives the user the best of both worlds, combining extract with grain. It’s good as a bridge. Absolute beginners might brew a few all-extract batches, transition to partial grain for a handful more, and then finally graduate to all-malt. And graduating doesn’t mean brewing all-malt exclusively. A homebrewer can always go back to extract from time to time, depending on immediate needs and desires.
“It used to be people would brew extract beers for a few years before making the jump to all-grain,” Strong observes. “Now I see people switch to all-grain directly.”
Strong’s advice: Why not brew with a more experienced hobbyist before cutting the cord? “If you haven’t brewed before or haven’t brewed for a while, you may not know what you want to do. That might be where a good homebrew club comes in handy. Get a flavor for that before you buy a bunch of your own stuff. It kind of helps if you don’t waste a lot of money on equipment that you’re going to change right away.”
Brew on Premises
Anyone with any level of practical brewing experience will tell you that the most critical and labor-intensive part of the process is cleaning. Beer requires a sterile environment; otherwise its susceptible to all sorts of infections from unwelcome microorganisms that have no qualms about ruining your beer. That was one of the main draws of the brew-on-premises concepts that emerged during the ’90s—originally in Canada to avoid high taxes on beer (from which brew-on-premises beer was exempt). Such establishments house all of the brewing equipment, all of the ingredients, and all of the bottles. All that a prospective brewer needs to do is show up. And it’s okay if the beginner doesn’t have a personal recipe in tow, as brew-on-premises establishments usually have loose-leaf binders packed with recipes based on just about any style.
And the best part, there’s nothing to scrub when you’re doing making the beer. It goes right into the fermenting vessels and you come back in about two weeks to bottle it; a bit longer if it’s a lager.
Sounds great, right? Not so fast. The number of homebrewers and commercial breweries may have exploded in just the past decade or so, but the number of brew-on-premises businesses has not.
Much like the craft brewing movement itself, there was a wave of enthusiasm in the mid-’90s that dissipated before the end of the decade. But the momentum has yet to return for brew on premises like it has for craft beer overall. There are still a handful of new ones opening here and there, but there still aren’t enough of them across the country to make it a viable option for most homebrewers (unless they want to travel and make a couple of weekends out of it). Homebrewers sans equipment have a better chance of cozying up to their local commercial brewers and seeing if they’ll let them use their brewhouse (still not very likely, as they’d be hard-pressed to find brewing operations with capacity to spare).
Still, if you’re fortunate enough to live within a two-hour’s drive of a brew-on-premises, it’s worth the trip. Staff members are usually well versed in the brewing process—they’re typically seasoned homebrewers themselves—and do a lot of the handholding that novices require.
Of course, you’re going to pay for the privilege, usually more for a single batch than you would for a basic homebrew kit. However, a batch will yield a good six-plus cases of beer (usually twelve 22-ounce bomber bottles per case). If you did the math, it ends up being about one-third to one-half of what you’d spend on the same quantity of a store-bought beer produced by your friendly neighborhood craft brewer. So, in purely consumer-oriented economic terms it makes good financial sense. However, it’s not about the money anyway. You get to take home about seventy-two individual holiday gifts for the difficult-to-buy-for folks on your list. Stick a bow on it, and your shopping is done!
The Oscars of Homebrewing
The National Homebrew Competition, awarded at the American Homebrewers Association’s annual National Homebrewers Conference, is about as big as it gets for avid homebrewers. The competition, launched in 1979, is easily the largest international beer competition awarding the efforts of brewing hobbyists. Each year judges evaluate around 8,000 beers, meads, and ciders from around the world. That’s narrowed down to three winners in each of twenty-eight overall style categories. There are also a range of major non-category-specific awards, including Homebrewer of the Year, Meadmaker of the Year, Cidermaker of the Year, and Homebrew Club of the Year.
Where Pro Meets Am
It’s the dream of virtually every homebrewer to go pro—and the ones who say it isn’t are very likely lying. But not everyone can, of course. (There may not be a bubble now, but it doesn’t take an economics prodigy to determine that the market can’t sustain 1.2 million commercial breweries.) But there are plenty of fantasy-fulfilling bridges between the extremes of amateur and professional. Among those is the Great American Beer Festival’s annual Pro-Am Competition.
A commercial brewery teams up with a homebrewer—the brewery must be a Brewers Association member, and the amateur must be up to date on his or her American Homebrewers Association (AHA) dues—to brew a batch based on the homebrewer’s recipe. The catch is the homebrewer must already be an award-winner, having picked up a medal in a competition that’s sanctioned by AHA and the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP).
The same panel of judges who decide the fate of the thousands of entries in the GABF’s professional competition also judge the Pro-Am entries. GABF attendees get to sample the entries—usually numbering in the neighborhood of one-hundred—at the Pro-Am booth during the regular tasting sessions.