Homebrew Your Own Beer

Homebrewed beer will be some of the best beer you'll ever taste. There are many advantages to brewing your own beer. You can enjoy microbrew quality beer at macrobrew cost. You can enjoy beer at its freshest. You become a part of the creative process, and with practice you can formulate a beer that matches your taste. Are you a hophead? Does a little Pete's Wicked or a good IPA bring your palate to life? You can try adding extra Cascade hops in the last 2 minutes of your boil, or even experiment with dry-hopping. When you brew your own, you have complete control.

You can spend as much or as little money as you want on homebrewing. A decent batch of beer can be made with little more than an enamel canning pot, a strainer and five glass one-gallon apple cider jugs. Some homebrewers set up complete little breweries in an outbuilding or in their garages.

Beer is generally made of four essential ingredients: Water, malted barley, hops and yeast. Of course, beer can be made with other ingredients as well. A weiss has wheat; honey ales have (surprise!) honey, most American-style lagers have corn sugar, and that blessed elixir, stout, is made with roasted barley and sometimes oatmeal. A crude homebrew (very crude) can even be made with Grape Nuts cereal! (Did you think our troops ordered tons of Grape Nuts and yeast in the first Gulf War because they wanted a nutritious breakfast?)

One book has become the essential Bible of Homebrewing: Charlie Papazian's The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing (Avon Books, 1991). It has recently been revised and is available as The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition (HarperResource, 2003). His New Testament to Homebrewing, The Homebrewers Companion (Avon Books, 1994) adds advanced techniques, additional information about equipment, and new recipes. There are many books on homebrewing available, but if you're looking for a place to get started, I highly recommend these books. You may not need any others.

If you want to get started brewing right away, I've posted a step-by-step procedure through one of my favorite recipes. This beer was well-received by friends and colleagues, and I haven't tasted many commercial brews that can top it.