Dan's Papers - August 31, 2007 - Bringing Home Da Brew

Beloved Anarchist Edward Abbey once said the only way to overthrow the system was to "brew your own beer, kick in your TV, build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody feel like it." While his unique view on revolution has not become commonplace, his ideals on brewing have been embraced by fed up beer junkies, poor college students and Nut Brown-fanatics for nearly 30 years. The rise in homebrew popularity coincidently arrived with a 1978 bill signed by Congress, which allowed citizens over 21-years-old to legally brew at least 100 gallons of beer a year without taxation, which had been illegal since prohibition. Luckily, it has been a dark and stout world for beer enthusiasts across America.

While the microbrew industry boomed, home brewing became increasingly popular with the growth of the Internet and one-stop shopping. Where once a potential brewer would have to seek out a local store to purchase hops, barley and malted grain, the modern brew master is a mere point and a click away from his or her malted necessities.

One of the main reasons for the surge in micro-brewed and home-brewed beer was the relative lack of variety offered before the 1978 law was passed, when civilian beer lovers that were forced to drink domestic schlock beer and drab imports were given the opportunity to craft unique brews of flavor. Apricot Pale Ale, Oatmeal Stout, Chocolate Porter and Belgian Honey, once only pipedreams in the sub-consciousness of Ale enthusiasts, were now legitimate happy hour options.

Nowadays, the only real dilemma is deciding which beer to brew. Luckily, there are so many options for home brewers that one is bound to find something that suits their taste buds, whether be it hoppy, dark or blonde.

Home brewer Jordan Giles of New York, started brewing his own beer in college as an affordable way to drink craft brew, while developing a taste for a variety of different styles. While many choose to make their foray into the beer world by purchasing a basic brewing starter kit consisting of basic ingredients, glass bottles and a plastic fermenting bucket, Giles went for a more professional outfit. For $500 he purchased two glass carboys for the fermenting process, a cleaning brush, a top of the line brewing pot, a CO2 release bubbler for the fermenters, lines and hoses for transferring, a keg-er-ator and two five gallon kegs for bottling. For an extra $20 he went "do-it-yourself" and built his own wort-chiller - a piece of equipment designed to cool the beer quicker and speed up the fermenting process. The wort-chiller assists in the cooling process, the most important step in the process of brewing beer, because the time from when the beer is removed from the stove until the yeast is added is when the brew is most susceptible to contamination.

Two years ago, when Giles was a piss broke college student trying to escape the inevitability of drinking Busch Light, he picked up Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing, a book about the history and reality of home brewing and became enamored with the subject. With brew on the brain, he chose to produce his first batch with Northern Brewers "Tongue Splitter IPA" extract kit. A fan of India Pale Ale, he chose the "Tongue Splitter IPA" after hours of research, finding that many home brewers preferred Ale because of the minimum amount of aging required and the lack of regulated cooling. While the simplicity of brewing an IPA was appealing to Giles, what really made his eyes light up was Northern Brewer's description of the "Tongue Splitter," as "insanely hoppy." He also knew the extra hops would help preserve his first batch against a variety of potentially beer-lethal bacteria.

It has been more than two years since Giles produced his first batch of basement brewed Ale and he still continues to fire up the stove, pour in the hops and crank out batches of consistently, delicious craft brew. While the convenience of popping by the corner store and picking up a six-pack of Pabst Tall Boys is sure to rouse a few commoners, the do-it-yourself nature of brewing beer guarantees a unique experience every six weeks (even if your batch isn't as good as you hoped). Think of it this way - mass brewed Stud-weiser or fresh, homemade Oatmeal Stout. It's your choice.