To some, beer is a tool of intoxication that comes in two varieties: Old Style in cans and Old Style in bottles.
Harrumph, replies Randy Mosher. He pops open a bottle and pours out just a few precious ounces. Mosher brewed this beer himself. It`s one of his favorites. It is mushroom beer, made with pricey chanterelle mushrooms from Oregon.
”It has a pure, sweet malt taste,” Mosher explains after taking a studied sip, ”with just enough hops to balance it. The apricot flavor of the chanterelle is layered on top, but it lingers in the aftertaste as well.”
Ray Daniels, a fellow home brewer and member of the Chicago Beer Society, nods appreciatively. Mosher has dropped by the basement brew kitchen of Daniels` North Side home this afternoon to talk beer.
Their totally serious conversation is the quintessential moment in the seemingly obscure hobby of home brewing, where beer is less a social lubricant or thirst quencher than an intellectual pursuit. Some practitioners even wear T-shirts proclaiming ”beer geek.”
There is no chugging here in the kitchen. No belching contests. And certainly no inebriation.
Instead, Mosher and Daniels thoughtfully share part of a single bottle. Then talk turns to computer software that calculates precise beer recipes and other dry subjects as Daniels stirs a steaming pot of malted barley that will eventually become a hearty German bock.
Millions of beer drinkers in the United States are content to swig commercially brewed beer by the bottle or six-pack and choose their brand by an advertising campaign. But a growing number of people are buying equipment and kits that allow them to brew any known style of beer, and even make up their own.
”It`s a tremendous creative outlet,” said home brewer Steve Paeschke.
”You get to make something that is uniquely yours.”
According to the American Homebrewers Association, more than 1 million people have tried the hobby since it was legalized in most states in 1979. Previously, home brewing was not allowed because the practice had been inadvertently left out of legislation repealing Prohibition.
The association`s membership of hard-core hobbyists has almost doubled, to 13,500, since 1989. From 1984-91, the bible of hobbyists, ”The Complete Joy of Home Brewing,” sold 125,000 copies. But in just the last year, the publisher has shipped 90,000 copies of the new second edition, according to the author, Charlie Papazian.
”I think it`s word of mouth and taste of mouth,” explained Papazian, who is president of the American Homebrewers Association.
The popularity of home brewing also reflects a growing fascination with the many styles of beer brewed around the world. Nationwide, small
”microbreweries” that market limited amounts of bottled beer are opening at a rapid pace. There are also many new brew pubs, restaurants that brew and serve their own homemade beer.
The Chicago Beer Society, a club that appeals both to home brewers and aficionados of microbreweries and brew pubs, has quickly become a major player nationally in the home brewing hobby, sponsoring regional judgings and cultivating several award-winning brewers.
Where only a half-dozen members attended club meetings last summer, 30 to 40 avid home brewers now turn up on the first Thursday of the month at a Chicago brew pub, the Goose Island Brewing Company. While members, most of whom are professional men in their 30s, buy and drink the pub`s beer, they also bring bottles of their own making to try out on one another.
On a recent evening, club members shared 25 different beers they had brewed. Chris Campanelli got raves for his deliciously rich imperial stout, a strong brew that was originally exported from England to the court of Russia in the 1700s.
Chris Nemeth deemed the stout excellent, although his reasoning didn`t exactly ring like an endorsement Budweiser could use as a slogan: ”It doesn`t have any bacterial infection that would produce off-flavors or aromas,”
Nemeth concluded after taking a clinical taste.
Al Korzonas, though, had a bad night. About his bock beer, he said, the consensus among clubmembers was that it was ”within style” but had several flaws, not the least of which was that it smelled like home hair-perming solution.
His second offering smelled and tasted something like bananas. This was an interesting concept, except it was a mistake, Korzonas cheerfully conceded. The problem, he said, had something to do with brewing at too high a temperature and inadvertently setting off a chemical change that created banana-like flavor esters.
Though home brewers tend to regard the intricacies of the craft as higher mathematics, the basic process of making beer at home actually is simple: Cook barley malt and water, add hops, ferment with yeast and drink.
”Beer in a bag” kits are available that require just adding water and waiting for several weeks.
For dedicated home brewers, such kits may create tasty beer but they lack the satisfaction that comes from making their own. So they choose to brew their beer from scratch using raw ingredients available at more than 1,000 home brewing supply stores nationally.
At Chicago Indoor Garden Supply in Streamwood, for example, more than 100 grains and hops are sold by the pouch or pound.
The brewing process, from the initial mixing of ingredients to drinking, takes a month or two, depending on the aging.
It begins with the mashing, or cooking, of a selection of ground, malted barleys to extract the fermentable sugar from the grain. The liquid sugar extract is then cooked with hops for flavor.
That mixture, essentially the raw beer, is cooled and placed in a large airtight container for 8 to 14 days with yeast, which ferments the brew by converting the sugars to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The beer flavor also develops at this time.
After fermentation is complete, sugar is added to create carbonation and the beer is bottled.
For home brewers who want to avoid some of the complexities, Chicago Indoor Garden has nearly 200 tins for sale that come with premeasured ingredients to make any style of beer, from England`s John Bull Extra Strong Bitter to Australia`s Coopers Real Ale.
Brewers can buy all the equipment they need to get started in the hobby for about $100, with the more avid brewers spending several hundred dollars a year on supplies. Brewers can also spend hours and hours building more elaborate systems for their art. In Daniels` beer kitchen, where plastic tubing, bubbling vats and copper coils create a mad scientist atmosphere, several pieces of equipment, including the brewing vat, were his own designs. That`s nothing compared to the products Mosher has dreamed up. One, on sale now by mail order, is called Doctor Bob Technical`s Amazing Wheel of Beer. It`s a $10 pinwheel calculator for computing ingredients. A second Mosher invention, called Beer Repair, is a liquid concentration that comes in a squirt bottle. A few drops are said to change pale, thin American beer into hearty European style brew.
It is that kind of inspiration that is at the heart of home brewing. Hobbyists talk with delight about the satisfaction of dreaming up a successful honey mead or raspberry ale. Then, just as important, it seems, they spend hours coming up with clever names and elaborate bottle labels. You`ve heard of Miller Genuine Draft. But how would you like to quaff a pint of Pudgy McBuck`s Celebrated Cocoa Porter? Or Toadex Bloatarian Abbey Ale?
