True brew
by Jon Worley

Sometime last week, hoping to catch one last re-run of South Park, I found instead two hours of tributes to Andy Kauffman. So when that bit of amusement faded out at 4 a.m., I was about to toss in the towel when an infomercial for the Beer Machine came on.

My wife Barbara gave me a serious brew kit (complete with five gallon buckets, hoses and all that "rocket science" stuff, as the infomercial called it), and I've brewed six beers since April. But that wasn't my only reason for taking interest in this strange little show.

Many of our college friends have gotten married over the past few years, and it's become fairly traditional to give alcohol (or alcohol-related) gifts. And the first of this tradition was a Beer Machine given to John and April. I don't think that they've actually used it, but I've sent them samples of my beer, and I wanted to know how to help them brew really good stuff, and not the fairly bland mix beers the Beer Machine company sells.

I'm not going to critique the infomercial, except to say that a lot of the "facts about brewing" were wrong. But that's okay. The one thing I liked is that the show emphasized that brewing and bottling the beer is almost as fun as drinking it. And, indeed, it is incredibly simple to brew, even if you use my more advanced set-up. Indeed, the "time-tested" method of brewing is simplicity itself: yeast eats sugar and excretes alcohol and carbon dioxide. Some beer historians (there are such people, believe it or not) think the first beer was brewed by Egyptians who left some bread out in the rain and then didn't clean up the mess for a few days. Someone ate this goo and discovered a nice little buzz. The rest is history.

Well, sort of. Despite what many anti-alcohol folks might think, we have God to thank for the modern type of beer (which doesn't include solids). Trappist monks in Belgium discovered the preservative ability of hops, and also experimented with many different sorts of yeast. And they discovered the importance of sterility.

Sterility, non-processed sugar (malted grain, honey or lactose are all common ingredients) and pure yeast is what makes good beer. As long as you keep things clean, the beer will taste good. And it is a big load of fun. Barbara keeps insisting that I like the brewing process better than actually quaffing the stuff, and I can't argue.

I like to cook, and I like the smell of a cooking kitchen. Making beer is cooking. Before fermentation, the malt, hops and any other ingredients you want (I've used chocolate, peanuts and blueberries, among other things; you've probably seen stuff like chile and garlic beer) have to boiled to ensure sterility. Once that mixture (the wort) cools off, you dump the wort into the fermenting bucket, add the proper amount of water, let cool and add yeast. About a week later, the stuff is ready to bottle. At that point some extra sugar (pure corn sugar or dried malt, usually, though the krausening method involves using some leftover wort) is added (to facilitate carbonation), and the stuff is poured into bottles. Wait another week (or a month, if you've got a lager) and your beer is ready. I like to make my own labels (I've got a nice set-up for that sort of thing), and I slap those puppies on the bottle before I drink them.

Is the beer good? Well, I brewed my first three beers with dried yeast. These turned out reasonably well, although my third beer has suffered a bit from carbonation issues (I'm still tracking down the problem). The fourth brew was a sweet porter that I made with liquid yeast and more malt than usual. I knew this one was good when I bottled it. The smell was simply gorgeous, and the nip I took from the non-carbonated brew convinced me I had a winner. While not quite up to the standards of Sierra Nevada or Bell's brews, it has impressed all who have come in contact with it. I still like to leave it out a few moments before drinking so that I can savor the scent.

Now, a few words of warning. If you aren't good about keeping things clean (or can't keep things clean, as I've never been known as a neat freak), then don't brew beer. When contaminated by wild yeast or other things, beer tastes terrible. If your reason for brewing is to save money, forget it. It costs between $30 to $40 a batch, and reach batch produces 50-55 12 oz. bottles (a little more than two cases). It is a bit cheaper than fine microbrews, but when you take into account your time, well, I'd call it a draw. And if you are brewing in order to keep your yuppie status, forget it. This is a fad right now, and you shouldn't spend the $100 or so for a real kit if you're not going to use it. It takes a while to learn all the tricks (and I'm still a novice), and the only way to learn is to keep brewing.

But even with all those possible problems, I'm still a brewing proselytizer. It's a big load of fun, and the result of the hobby is good beer. And the nature of the act seems to attract decent, mellow folks. I've never met a serious homebrewer who is a jerk. If it takes something like the Beer Machine to convince some folks to get into this activity, well, that's okay by me. After all, if you love pounding the brewski, there's nothing better than knowing you made what you're drinking.

Jon Worley brews in his kitchen above the Roosevelt Tavern in York, Pennsylvania. He generally consumes his beer after it has been poured into a Boulevard (a Kansas City brewer) glass At this very moment, he has a blueberry Scotch ale bubbling away in the brew bucket.

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