DRAFT Magazine

By Sarah Whitmire

Don’t get us wrong; at DRAFTMag.com, we realize that sometimes the best part about beer is picking up a six-pack on the way home from a long day and simply relaxing. For some, that weekday pilgrimage is not likely to be replaced with a five-hour science experiment of lifting hot pots and a month of patience. But now that we got our feet wet (and sticky) in the homebrew process, there’s a couple a things you need to know…

Size matters
Viewers who caught Homebrewing an Apple Crisp Ale may have noticed the operation being done on a smaller scale. That homebrew kit in particular was from Brooklyn Brew Shop, a couple-run homebrew store that puts out kits in smaller, one-gallon sizes perfect for taking up little space in a New York City apartment. Brewing with this kit could only have been easier if they’d overnighted the beer straight from Brooklyn; plus, the price was right. It was about $60 for the baby kit and grain mix (including shipping from New York to Phoenix). The trade-off? Less beer to show for all your hard labor. This one gallon kit only yields about 12 bottles, and even less when you don’t pour hot wort very well.

Science rules!
Since no one saw fit to talk about brewing beer on Bill Nye or the Magic School Bus, homebrewing calls for a little brushing up on basic chemistry and physics. For starters, be sure to have some kind of unit converter handy to easily keep track of volume; measurements could be in ounces, gallons, cups, quarts, etc. The most insignificant error in converting units can have pretty profound effects on your final product. Next, take time to figure out how beer works (besides the obvious); Brew Your Own has a great article detailing how malt, yeast, hops, and water come together. Trust us on this one, if you don’t know roughly how beer is made in the first place, the already daunting homebrew instructions are going to seem a whole lot worse. Lastly, be smarter than gravity. Don’t assume that you understand all the physics of siphoning liquid from place to place. If physics weren’t your strong suit, practice siphoning with containers of water set on the same levels you plan to use for your beer.

Read the instructions
The straight-forwardness of this point is annoying, but skipping, mis-reading or mis-understanding even one step of the process could ruin your whole batch. If you are brewing by yourself, get a friend in on it to provide a second opinion. As a side note, read the instructions as soon as your kit is home (especially if it is being shipped, and even more so if you live in a warm climate). Depending on your brew, some ingredients (namely, liquid yeast) need to be refrigerated. So if you let your kit sit for more than a day, the included ice pack will do it’s predictable thing; not only will this grime up your brand-new kit, but the yeast will die.

You aren’t the first person to make beer
The Mesopotamians beat you to the punch by about five centuries, but the point is, you aren’t alone. If you think something isn’t going right, or you just want to know more, the answer to your question is probably online. Even more fun is the homebrew sub-culture; beer drinkers are already a subset of the mainstream, but when you begin to brew, you join the ranks of some pretty cool folks. The American Homebrewers Association has great resources and forums to answer questions you didn’t know you had, and you can find out what homebrew events or competitions may be going on in your area.

Have fun!
Brewing at home is a fun, interesting process that any beer connoisseur should dabble in at least once. Despite all the pointers on things that could go wrong, there are really only a handful of ways to mess up the brew. At the end of the day, you can enjoy drinking the craft beer of your choice, at Bud Light prices. By the way, how did that Apple Crisp Ale fair among DRAFT writers?

“Definitely a great brew for the winter season. This beer’s caramel malts, floral hops, and cinnamon undertone would pair perfectly with holiday cookies,” said Christopher Staten, DRAFT associate editor.

“What I love most about it is that its certainly an apple beer — there’s just the slightest hint of sour apple in the very back of the swallow — but that it’s a complete 180 from cider. The emphasis is on the apple skin, hops and, cinnamon; they combine to produce a really floral, herbal, and decidedly bitter beer that’s akin to a dark apple pale ale. It’s delicious — too bad the batch wasn’t bigger!” said Jessica Daynor, DRAFT Managing Editor.

– Sarah Whitmire is an editorial intern at DRAFTMag.com.