With the home brew revival of the 1980s came a resurgence in craft brewing.  Home brewers who were inspired started microbreweries around the country.  With the coming of these new brew pubs, a newfound knowledge of how an honest ale is made spread like wildfire in the United States.  This momentum has culminated in what we now enjoy as the golden age of microbrew.  Although many microbreweries today have been or are in the process of being bought up by large corporate brewing interests, the ethics of real craft brewing has made its way into the hearts and minds of beer fans across the country, ensuring that real craft brewing will never again die in the U.S.

To put things in a historical context, let us look back to the 1980s.  Ronald Reagan, the monkey man from the movies had been elected president.  Global tensions surrounding the insane cold war had everyone thinking that doomsday might be tomorrow.  This, of course contributed to a nihilistic youth culture known as punk rock.  At this time, there were only about twelve brands of beer to choose from in the United States.  CAMRA, the English group that encourages the manufacture and consumption of real ale had kept the madness of mass produced bland beer away from England, and a few microbreweries in the U.S. were spreading the gospel of good beer.

Once the cold war let up, we saw the microbreweries take off.  There must have been a huge sigh of relief worldwide – I’m sure that that sigh contributed to a loosening up around the country.  Shortly thereafter the number of microbreweries in the U.S multiplied rapidly.  We’ve gone from twelve varieties in the 1980’s to nearly 1500 and counting by 2006, bringing us into the golden age of the microbrew.  Nearly every large city has numerous microbreweries in the states, now, and many smaller towns have one as well.  According to beertown.org, since 2003, Craft beer industry sales have grown 31.5%. It has become common for townsfolk to be asked “where is the local brew pub?”

We are in an age where the trend of craft brewing seems to only be gaining more momentum.  The business of microbreweries is certainly a growth market, easily transplanted to tourist towns or to big cities.  Another aspect of the economics of the golden age of the micro brew is the ever-growing interest in home brewing and building a home bar.  With increased manufacture and sales of the decadent appliance the kegerator, more and more people are enjoying pub style draft beer at home (see article, “What is a Kegerator?” for more information).  Online showrooms featuring the latest in home bar technology keep spreading the good word of the kegerator as a delightful addition to any home.

With so many microbrews to choose from, many people are opting for kegerator conversions.  Available easily online, these conversion kits allow you to transmogrify any working refrigerator into a kegerator.  By utilizing the kegerator conversion kits, one not only saves on shipping costs for one’s kegerator, but also allows for a kegerator that can serve up to five beers at a moderate cost.  This allows for numerous ale selections to be available at a relatively low cost, a real benefit in the golden age of microbrew, when such a vagarious array of beers is offered to the public.

The most we can really do to promulgate this tendency towards vast selection and variety of microbrews is to keep enjoying them.  By spreading the word of good beer far and wide, we may someday see this trend spread far and wide, to the remote towns of the Yukon, the remote towns of the Midwest, and even further.  With enough word of mouth promotion, we may even find ourselves moving from the Golden age to the Platinum age of microbrew!

The key to throwing a brew tasting party is inviting the right people.  People who will provide interesting brews, beers, ales, meads, and wines to sample, and people who will truly appreciate such brews!  Having different levels of beverages to taste on hand is a good idea, as well as acquiring a small keg of quality ale as a back line.  Probably amongst the best of ideas is to invite home brewers to your beer tasting party!  Any home brewer is likely to bring some of their one-of-a-kind home brew to spice things up.

The best beer tastings I have been to have been those at which at least three home brewers were present.  The variety in their brews and specialty styles of beer was delightful to taste and contrast with each other.  It is at these beer tastings that I first tried spruce ale (courtesy of Oz Haus Breweries), cyser (an apple cider + mead combination), and the delectable concoction know as “Pulque Yarrow”, an Agave-nectar-based-brew with an added punch of inebriation lent by the yarrow.  The closest most would come to the taste of this wonderful beverage would probably be a white wine cooler consisting of a light white wine of fine quality and a dash of ginger ale.  That still is a far cry from the refreshing light taste of the “Pulque Yarrow” invented by my close comrade “Dead” Ben “Carleton” of the Plague Water Brewing Company.

But it was at the Mead tasting party of the Reverend Jim of the Church of the Great Green Frog that I first was introduced to the variety of flavors and overtones offered by a properly aged brew.  For drinks of high alcohol content, i.e. fine wines, whisky, and bourbon, it is commonly known that they increase in value and flavor throughout the years.  But, also, brews such as mead and barley wine easily fall into this category.

When you decide to throw a brew tasting party, forethought will pay off in this regard when you bring our a one year, two year, three year or older mead or barley wine.  If you are not a home brewer yourself, you need not fear: these days, barleywines are available in the finer liquor stores of most cities, and even meads.  When buying meads, though, you should be wary of mislabeled bottles of merely honey sweetened grape wine – often labeled “Meade” or “Honey Wine”.  See my article “A Guide to Mead” for further information.

One aspect of how to throw a brew tasting party that is very important, especially for larger parties, is (you guessed it!) the KEGERATOR.  Honestly, if you don’t have one, you should make friends with someone who does and throw the brew tasting party at their house.  It isn’t difficult to build you won kegerator, though.  Many kits are available online for transforming an old refrigerator into a home draft beer system.  These kits come in a variety of styles and functions, from the basic to the deluxe, for both full sized refrigeration units as well as half sized and even freezers.  In either case, you should be prepared to have lots of room in the kitchen refrigerator for chilling the specialty brews that are sure to show up at your brew tasting party.

If you are going to throw a brew tasting party outside, whether in the back yard, the park, or the graveyard, you will most likely wish to have a beer cooler in place of the kegerator.  There are kits for converting an ordinary camping cooler into kegerators as well.  These kits will help you to have your brew tasting party out in the great outdoors, and if properly disguised, will avoid any unpleasant hassles from authorities without much to occupy their time.  See my article “Disguising a Mobile Beer Draft System” for more information on this aspect of public drinking.
 In summary, to successfully throw a brew tasting party, follow the following guide lines:
 
1. Invite home brewers.
2. Have a back line of beer.
3. Have a special reserve or aged brew available for tasting.

If you follows these guidelines, it is incredibly likely that your brew tasting party will indeed be a success.  Being a home brew hobbyist yourself will also give you the inside scoop on what new and interesting brews are going around in the home brew and micro brew circles.

As the world of home brew grows ever larger, the need for software for homebrewers is increasing. It can be difficult for the modern home brewer to keep track of all the recipes, methods of brewing, and tricks that one has used for the craft. With modern technology and new software for homebrewers, your beer recipe can be kept on-hand – or even on-line - quite easily. Already the American Association of Homebrewers has an extensive website, and new websites are popping up daily with advice on your home made beer recipe, mashing methods, and even concerning distillation techniques. Homebrew applications are becoming more and more common as the world of brewers emerges as a definitive presence on the internet.

In addition to numerous web pages offering advice on just about every aspect of brewing, most brewing supply houses are offering ordering services online. It is now possible to order direct from the manufacturer numerous kinds of homebrew supplies and ingredients, even including some farms that sell direct through their websites. It is no wonder then, that there is now a plethora of software available for the home brewer. Homebrew applications are available for storing your beer recipe, calculating the flavors of your homebrew, and even humorous video games have been made based on brewing ingredients. Here are four examples of software for homebrewers currently available online as shareware. Usually, shareware means free 30 day trial of the homebrew application before you are asked to register as a paying customer, and shareware programs cost around $10-$50 in most cases.

Homebrew Calculator (homebrew application) is a program available from Homebrew Software that can record your beer recipe and uses the information to calculates the bitterness, color, original gravity, and alcohol content of your brew, as well as provide brewing tips. It comes with a glossary with over 250 terms, and support from the company in the way of on-line customer service. This homebrew application is quite a value, and is supported on most Windows operating systems.

Home Brew Kit Master (homebrew application) is a program that can be used to record the details of your home brews and is designed to help with quality testing. It prints reports, generates tasting sheets, and features a searchable knowledge base of tips on home brewing. Other programs, such as Beersmith, even take into account the vagaries of all grain and partial grain brewing. This is a program by Kevin Solway.

Strange Brew is another shareware program that can be used to record your recipes and the flavors and opinions that result from them. This homebrew application has received a good review from Zymurgy, the monthly magazine of the Brewers Association, and is available for just $15 after a 30-day trial period. This software for homebrewers comes with a recipe database for many different kinds of beer, and features online recipe database to browse and download from.

Finally, MrGoodbeer.com brings us Yeastman - a low-fi video game much like pac-man in which wort dots are consumed by the Yeastman, while pursued by evil bacterium. Power pellets, I mean, beer barrels, help to defeat these haunting bacterium. This program is freeware.

These and other pieces of software for homebrewers are available with recipes for distinct types of beer, ingredient databases, and even labeling programs. The world of software for homebrewers seems to be growing all the time, and more and varying homebrew applications are filling a void in software technology each month. Although many of us are not the most technologically advanced folks, there is a growing community of home brew beer makers online that are finding unique beer recipes that would otherwise not be shared. Most of the beer recipe software is available for a free trial anyways, so why not try it out? You might find it more useful than you bargained for!

Home brewing beer is a traditional art that has recently undergone a huge resurgence. Hobby minded people from coast to coast are now making beer at home and re-discovering the tricks and treats of making their own beer, wine, and mead for a fraction of the cost of store bought alcohol. In fact, of the many types of libations that one can produce with a simple knowledge of the process of fermentation are rare, if one can find them in stores at all. Some of the tips that I discuss in this article will help any home brewer achieve these rare and wonderful flavors by brewing at home.

My first tip on home brewing beer has to do with really bringing the flavors out of your malt by aging. Most folks, including myself, are all too eager to try their latest batch of beer. I urge you to have patience! A properly aged beer gains quite a variety of subtle flavors over time. Most beers age very well at two months, and the higher the gravity (or alcohol level), and the stronger the hop content, the longer such beers can age without detriment. If you save a six pack and taste one every two weeks, you will start to get an idea of how your brews are enhanced by aging. Most beers start to drop off in flavors after six months, so make sure you don’t wait too long!

My next tip on brewing at home is simple, yet vital – keep good track of your recipes! I recommend keeping a log in a hardbound book of your home brewing endeavors - both while brewing and after tasting – this will help you to fine tune your recipes. The simple process of writing down your recipes and the development of your brew over time will help you achieve the taste, body, and appearance you desire in your home brewed beers… in a way that no amount of reading other’s books on the subject will. Make sure you leave room in each log entry not only for your recipe, but also any variations on standard production, including whether or not you applied a secondary or tertiary fermentation, changes in the temperature while the brew is fermenting, and, of course, the taste of the brew upon completion of fermentation and at intervals after (as long as your supply lasts!).

Another useful tip on home brewing beer is to diversify! A simple knowledge of fermentation will yield a vast array of brews. The world of beers alone is intricate and varied, from the light pale ales, lagers, and pilsners to the heavy and thick porters (my favorite), stouts, and barley wines, there are hundreds of flavors and styles. I recommend starting out by mastering a few kinds of simple beer – an amber ale is a good first choice – and from there trying more and more complicated recipes. In this manner, you can slowly but surely build your home brewing repertoire until you have quite a few beers under your belt. Also, by expanding into the art of mead or cider, you can produce brews for those that are allergic to hops or malt, for which they will be VERY grateful, as I can attest to from personal experience. Mead and cider are both good choices for expanding beyond the realm of beer, due to the simplicity of their production.

“It’s the water.” We have all heard this phrase before, and I tell you now that IT IS TRUE! The quality of water used in your beer production is VERY important. The tap water from most cities is terrible for home brewing beer – it might even ruin some batches that are particularly sensitive. I recommend using reverse osmosis filtered water for regular brews, and spring water of the highest quality for brews you are putting a lot of effort into. I went on a road trip to Alaska in 2004 in the summer, and we quickly went through some 15 gallons of home brew on the way north. While visiting a glacial park near Anchorage, Alaska, I harvested ten gallons of pure glacier melt water, five gallons of which made it back home with me. The beer I made with that water I gifted to each of my friends that made it up for the summer, “Winter Wolf Stout”. This was the best beer I ever brewed, using organic ingredients and pure Alaskan glacier melt water – and you could taste that it was the water! This was truly the landmark of my career in home brewing beer.

My final tip on brewing at home is to add your own personal flair for each brew. Try a little something different that will most likely have an inconsequential effect upon the brew – yet YOU will know it’s there. Maybe this involves adding some actual cocoa beans to your chocolate porter. Maybe it’s as extreme as adding a squid’s ink sac to the boil in an amber ale (what I did for my first beer: the Spirit Squid Amber Ale). Or simple as throwing some boiled oak chips into your fermentation vessel for two weeks. These little touches may or may not have any effect upon your brew – but they are a great way to expand and evolve the art of home brewing beer. Most importantly, it makes the art and process of brewing at home fun! The fun you get out of this hobby is like no other – it makes for shared experiences that are unique to knowing who YOU are.

The world of beer is vast and multi faceted. There are hundreds of different varieties of beer made around the world, and many variations on the production of each. I will discuss here some of the different techniques used to produce differing flavors, body, alcohol levels, and color in your home brewed beer.

My first technique for homebrewed beer has to do with really bringing the flavors out of your malt – crafting what’s called a raw ale. This has to do with the temperature at which your wort is boiled. Most kinds of beers are boiled at or above 100 Degrees Celsius. Through this process, a beer gains some of its bittering qualities, which many brewers try to bring out in their stouts, pilsners, and other bitter ales. By controlling the temperature of your wort, you can bring out different, and to many, hidden, malt characteristics of your beer. To achieve this, it is a simple process – one must have a thermometer to test the wort – simply heat your wort no higher than 70-75 degrees C. (150-158 degrees F.) for the boil. This process leaves in many of the rich flavinoids, essential oils, and malt character of your homebrewed beer that the boil usually drives out. Note that during the “boil”, the wort does not actually boil, although it is still heated at this high temperature for one full hour.

This process, the “raw ale” boil, is essential for Mead production. Over heating the mead wort will not only drown out the delicate flower essences, but also affects the sugars in the honey, making them carcinogenic. This is according to Ayurvedic doctors, practitioners of the ancient medical practice of India. Although the health benefits of honey and mead are widely known in the brewing community, this tip is less known and very important.

Another technique that I use in the production of some kinds of beer is what is know as the fortified ale. A fortified ale is an ale that has some amount of spirits, or hard liquor, added to the beer to increase its alcohol content. While this is a fine benefit, I fortify my ales for a different reason. I utilize the fortified ale as a method of imbuing the beer with fresh herbal tastes and qualities extracted by the alcohol. For a wintry treat, one might make an alcohol tincture of mint in a liter of 40 proof vodka, and add that to a five gallon batch of stout or porter. This is a seasonal ale I make for the Mardi Gras season.

One new trend in brewing is making beer with differing adjuncts and replacements of the sugars or malt in your beer. I have known brewers to use maple syrup, honey, and even molasses in their homebrewed beer to add a new dimension of flavor and body. The molasses stout is a particularly intriguing brew, as it produces a beer of unrivaled thickness. The mineral content of molasses really comes through, a little too much at first. A molasses ale takes longer to ferment than a regular ale, as well. Mine took one and a half months (but I made it quite strong!). The harsh flavors of the molasses need about one and a half to two months of aging to settle out of the brew. After this, you have a distinct, sweet, and flavorful brew. Good for heating folks up on those cold winter nights!

For a clear, beautiful homebrewed beer that is pleasing to the eye, the technique of racking is essential. Racking your beer is a process by which you periodically siphon your beer off from the primary fermentation vessel, leaving behind the gluten and yeast sediment, which settles out of the beer during fermentation. One siphons the beer into another glass carboy, the secondary fermentation vessel. Racking at 1 week, 10 days, and 12 days will ensure that sediment does not stir up into your beer during the bottling or kegging process.

There are an unlimited amount of techniques, tips, tricks, and secrets that different brewers use to fine tune their brews to taste. One of the fun aspects of home brewing is discovering these, and networking with other brew fans to find out what works best for you to produce your favorite homebrewed beer.

In most major cities in the United States there is a community of homebrew aficionados. We usually congregate in groups, as friends, talk about and brew beer. There are even larger clubs that host beer club contests – an national beer leagues that authenticate such contests and even send experienced judges out to help to define the flavors and characteristics of differing types of beer (such as the American Association of Homebrewers). It is fun and exciting, and also helpful to attend meetings of your local homebrew club. If no such club exists in your area, or even if it does, it can be fun to join or start your own beer club!

My experience with the homebrew club comes from the point of view of collective brewing. Collective brewing is by far the easiest and most inexpensive way to make a variety of beers in a variety of styles. The main benefit of collective buying is that when you buy in bulk, you always get a better price on brewing ingredients. Another great benefit of starting or joining such a homebrew club is sharing equipment.Especially when entering the realm of all grain brewing, this can be very useful, as a whole slew of new brewing equipment is needed.

Many a beer club or beer league has further benefits to joining. Some have a vast array of recipes on hand. Some have equipment or other resources to share. By networking with other brewers, you can meet those beer club members that have the skills you may lack. Workshops, lectures, and parties are all common functions put on by beer leagues and beer clubs. Often you can get enough tips and tricks just by talking to folks that you won’t need all the pamphlets and books published on the subject – and you will learn from someone with hands-on experience. Especially if you are considering cultivating yeast cultures for your brew, I would recommend apprenticing under someone else with more knowledge than you.

The American Association of Homebrewers is one of the most active and largest of the homebrew clubs. Through publications, programs, and events, the American Association of Homebrewers educates people about and promotes the hobby of homebrewing. Events such as the “Big Brew” coordinate brewers all around the world to make beer on the same day. In 2006, it is estimated that 7,347 gallons of homebrew brewed worldwide at 210 Big Brew sites by 2,956 participants. More probably brewed at home in solidarity with this event if their homebrew club was too far away from a big brew site. The American Association of Homebrewers also offers a pub discount program that offers discounts on beer, food and/or merchandise at breweries, and brewpubs.

One mission that the larger beer clubs or beer leagues purport is supporting traditional, independent, and small craft breweries. The American Association of Brewers defines these traits in the following way:

“An American craft brewer is small, independent and traditional. Craft beer comes only from a craft brewer.

Small = annual production of beer less than 2 million barrels.

Independent = Less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer.

Traditional = A brewer who has either an all malt flagship (the beer which represents the greatest volume among that brewers brands) or has at least 50% of it’s volume in either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor.”

The main function of this association is to support small craft breweries (most micro brews fall into this category), but most brewing competitions supported by this organization, and other beer leagues like them, allow entries from home brewers as well. This can be an exciting way to test the quality of your homebrew in a competitive setting. The American Association of Homebrewers works closely with the Association of Brewers, as well, and both organizations promote and endorse homebrew clubs, and educate the public about the legalities of homebrewing.

Many people do not realize that homebrewing is still illegal in some states. The American Association of Homebrewers is one homebrew club dedicated to educating folks about this topic, and there is information about what you can do to change these laws available through their website. Although made legal at a federal level in 1978, the old home brew is still illicit to manufacture in certain states. Already, homebrew activists have changed laws in New Jersey and Georgia, and there are a few people in Utah and Alabama that are currently employing the tactics of education and grassroots lobbying in order to affect similar changes in those states. Brewing and enjoying one’s own home brew responsibly is a right that every American should enjoy!

There are many tricks of the trade in the world of beer. Secondary fermentation is one. This is the process of siphoning off your beer after the initial rush of fermentation that happens. This leaves behind much of the yeasty sediment which comes out of your beer and sinks to the bottom of the fermentation vessel. This sediment contains dead yeast, and gluten from the barley, malt and other grains used in the making of the beer. This sediment can also be used as the yeast for your next batch of beer, if you brew quickly! Utilizing the process of secondary fermentation has many benefits.

The most prominent benefit of using secondary and even tertiary fermentation is that your beer will have a much purer taste. By leaving behind the sediment, one insures that this dead yeast doesn’t steep itself into the taste of your beer. There are many people who are highly sensitive to this yeasty flavor, and they will thank you for removing it from their beer. In some women, an overabundance of yeast in the diet can instigate yeast infections. This makes overly yeasty brew a health risk for some.

For the home brewer, the most recognized technique that can be used to eradicate a yeasty taste from your beer is secondary and tertiary fermentation. To do more, one would have to pasteurize ones ale – a difficult process for the home brewer. The process of Pasteurization heats the product, mostly while in the bottle or can, to boiling temperature and then back down to room temperature rapidly, killing off any remaining yeast or bacteria that might have crept into the product. The process of pasteurization has enabled many microbreweries to achieve just the right balance of sweetness and alcohol in their brews.

Now, back to using secondary fermentations! Your beer will have a much clearer look to it if you use this process. Amber will have a beautiful red clarity, showing off the fine colors roasted into the grains, while a pale ale will shine glowingly in the evening sun. With secondary and tertiary fermentation, the natural clarity of your beer will really come out. Even for the dark beers this is important, because the cloudiness that can ensue from sediment mixing will actually make the beer look less dark.

It is necessary for the homebrewed to have extra carboys and siphon hoses on hand if he or she wishes to use the process of secondary fermentation. I recommend leaving lots of room in a five or even six gallon carboy when your initial fermentation is starting – about one gallon’s worth of room – in any case. This ensures that as your beer bubbles over with foam in the initial fermentation, it will not foam out of the airlock. If the foam reaches the airlock in this stage of brewing, it can seriously jeopardize the antiseptic safeguards that protect the brew from unwanted bacterial infection. So, if you are making a 5 gallon batch of beer, it is a wise idea to split that up between two five gallon carboys, or a five and a three, or just use a six and leave plenty of room.

After the initial rush of fermentation (which usually takes three to five days), it is time to siphon out the beer into a new carboy. All the room you left the first time for foam now can be consolidated. Make sure that when you place your carboy(s) for the initial fermentation, they are on a table work bench, or somewhere up high, where you can later siphon them using gravity. If you move your carboy just before siphoning it into the secondary fermentation vessel, you will severely sabotage your efforts to leave behind the sediment. The jarring and sloshing will mix some of the sediment back into your brew, thereby negating the full effectiveness of the process of secondary fermentation!

Many home brewers will use their soda kegs as the secondary or tertiary fermenting vessels for their brew, and with the right timing, this can allow your brew to self carbonate with the malt sugars left over from the main fermentation.

All in all, secondary fermentation is a very important step towards refining your home brew. I recommend it for home brewers that want to take the next step in producing quality beers for family and friends.

The great and glorious mystery of fermentation has only become widely answered in the last 200 years. In the history of beer production, for seven centuries before, the act of fermentation has thought to have been the result of many differing gods, angels, saints, prayers, and rituals. The Vikings of the Netherlands would even shout insults at their beer to awaken its spirit! Since the discovery of yeast by Louis Pasteur in 1857, the art of brewing has advanced, with techniques of yeast culturing, to the point where, currently, there are hundreds of different strains of yeast that are maintained in the brewing world.

The Fermentation process is a simple one. Yeast is the key to fermentation. Yeast devours sugars and spits out both alcohol and CO2. In order to get the best results out of your brewing yeast, control the temperature of your beer as it is fermenting. By keeping your beer in a cool place, you keep the yeast colony from replicating too fast. Yeast thrives in a warm, moist environment. The faster the yeast grows, the faster is eats up all the sugars in the wort. This also means that there is more dead yeast in your beer at the end of the fermentation process. This lends a very yeasty taste to the beer, and is highly discouraged. Keeping your beer in a cellar or basement is perfect for maintaining an ideal temperature for your yeast to ferment at, where your wort (what we call the beer before fermentation) will ferment nicely and evenly.

For an even more extreme anti yeast taste treatment, try lagering your beer, keeping it as cold as 12 degrees C. (or 40 degrees F.)

There are different strains of yeast cultured in different parts of the world. Each one has a slightly different flavor, which it adds to the brew. The main effect the yeast has on the fermentation process is the level of alcohol that the yeast will take your brew. The average ale yeast goes to around 6% alcohol. Wine and Champagne yeasts go much higher, causing the fermentation process to reach as high as 18% alcohol. Different yeasts like different things, but two ingredients cause yeast to go crazy, above all others – malt and hops. Which are, of course, the main ingredients of beer!

Before the advent of yeast culturing, wild yeast fermentation was used (knowingly or not) to attract yeasts (then thought of as spirits) into the wort. The brewers would often leave their brewing vessel in a special hut, uncovered, and say prayers over the brew. When the brew started to foam, they knew the spirit had entered. This wild yeast fermentation process was hit and miss, as sometimes a bad flavor (or spirit) would get into the ale, and it had to be thrown out. Modern home brewers still have to deal with these evil spirits during the yeast fermentation process, but we are better equipped to drive them out than our predecessors were.

Around the 15th century, some of the brewing monks started to catch on to the way the angels (yeasts) were working. They found that if they used the same wooden spoon to stir their cooled wort, the same good spirit resulted. This technique was also used by the latter day Vikings, but they used oak staves carved with runes. The reason why these tools worked their miracles was that yeast fermentation cultures would live in the wood. Even when the spoon or rune was dried, the yeast culture could live dormant in the wood until the next use.

The yeast fermentation process is truly a miracle, and understanding this process is vital to understanding how to make good beer.

So you want to learn how to make beer without any fuss? It’s actually quite simple! With a basic knowledge of the process of fermentation and carbonation, and a little advice from your local brew store, you can make your own beer and have it ready to drink within one month. The key is beer kits. There are a variety of beer kits on the market today, and they come in many flavors and sizes. The easiest kind of beer kit to use is the 3 gallon beer bag variety, which takes little more effort than pouring boiling water into a bag, hanging the bag up on your wall, and then adding yeast once it has cooled down.

With a little more effort, you can have a larger array of ales to choose from to make your own beer. These beer brewing kits are available at your local brew shop or online, and they allow you more freedom to choose the exact kind of beer that you want to drink. These kits require a few more tools, however, such as a 3 gallon brewing kettle, carboys (glass jars used as fermentation vessels), airlocks for the carboys, and bottling tools.

If you are a beginner, I advise you to go to your local brew store instead of buying kits online. This will enable you to reap the benefits of the collective knowledge of the employees of the brew store, who are usually very friendly and helpful to those just starting out. If you must get started right away, the beer bag style kits are probably for you – the simple and easy way to make your own beer.

If the idea of beer made in a plastic bag offends you, you may have the makings of an excellent beer brewer! In this case, if you have the cash, just go to your local brew store and ask them what you need to get started. Your initial cost for tools (carboys, airlocks, kettle, etc…) is likely to be around $50. This is money well spent, and if you continue to make your own beer, it is likely to save you more money than you spend within 2 months. You will then be on the path of brewing with malt extract. This is the simplest way to start learning how to brew, as it removes the mashing process from the equation. Once you learn how to make beer with malt extract, you can learn how to use grains to flavor your beer, and once you are familiar with the flavors and body the roasted grains add to your beer, you will be ready to learn all grain brewing.

The easiest beers to make are those that have the least amount of processes involved in making them. A variety of ingredients are easy to manage, you just measure it all out. Lagering, on the other hand, pretty much takes a walk in refrigerator, unless you have a very chill cellar in your house. Belgian ales are difficult to master as well, requiring extreme attention to cleanliness and process. I recommend an amber ale for the beginner, as these ales have few ingredients and the process of making them is quite clear cut. Learning how to make beer with the simple recipe of the amber ale will not have the challenge of these other styles. You will need no flavoring grains, just malt extract, hops, yeast, and water. And a pinch of Irish Moss thrown in at the end of the boil will make your own beer as clear and beautiful as any in any pint glass!

Remember that the process of how to make your own beer need not be complicated. Sometimes the best beers are the simplest to make. It is always better to start out simple and then, with experience, advance to more complicated brews. The quality of the beer you produce has more to do with acknowledging the limits of your craft than the exotic qualities of the recipe. Once you find out how easy it is to make your own beer, you will soon be teaching others how to make beer, expanding the network of home brewers in your town, explaining how to make beer while making new friends and connections at the same time.

Homebrew recipes are many and varied. You can find many different recipes online or just by asking at your local brew store – and, of course, there are many books on the subject. You, too, can produce your own homebrew recipe without much effort. A little understanding goes a long way. Really, making beer is not all that complicated.

My favorite source of homebrew recipes is the book Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers by Stephen Bruner. I have made many of the homebrew recipes, with much enjoyment, and inspiration for making my own unique contributions to brewcraft. Although some of the ingredients are quite difficult to find, usually the experience of searching out these strange components proves to be an interesting adventure! Many of the homebrew recipes in this book are ancient, and even the measurements are archaic and difficult to understand without the scholarly interpretation offered.

I find that with a basic understanding of the proportions involved in brewing, even a beginning brewer can create his or her own homebrew beer recipe. The basic formula is one and ¼ pound of sugars per gallon for a strong brew (that’s six pounds malt extract, or ½ gallon to make 5 gallons of beer). As far as hops go, one to three ounces of hops in five gallons will do you fine – some for bittering and some for finishing. The standard ale yeast in a packet, found at your local homebrew supply store, will serve just fine for your fermentation. And if you are ordering online, I recommend Knottingham Ale yeast for your homebrew beer recipe. A pound or two of flavorful roasted grains never hurts to spice up the body of your ale, either.

The quality of ingredients used in your homebrew beer recipe are of utmost importance to the ultimate taste of the brew. The most important ingredient, in my opinion, is the water. Tap water should be avoided at all costs, as the chlorine and other chemicals can disrupt the flavor of your beer. Spring water is the best, followed by water filtered by reverse osmosis, then distilled water. In my experience as a home brewer and a beer fan, I have found that organic ales also yield the most flavorful and enjoyable results. I highly recommend using only organic ingredients – those grown without the use of pesticides - in your beers. The process of organic growing ensures that only the strongest plants survive in the field, without the crutch of poison spraying and toxic soil content. This really comes through with strong flavor in the organic ales I have brewed and tasted.

If you are going for a stronger ale, a Scottish ale or a barley wine, I recommend using a champagne yeast, or ale yeast and champagne yeast combination, to achieve your brew. The flavor of the yeast you use is an important factor in determining the overall taste of how your homebrew beer recipe turns out. When making barley wine, it is especially important to make careful use of your yeasts. By starting the fermentation off with an ale yeast, and finishing with a champagne yeast, you can enjoy the earthier flavor of the ale yeast while getting the solid punch (high alcohol level) that the champagne yeast offers - both in one brew.

You will have to adjust the amount of sugars in such a strong ale as well. It will take about 2 pounds of sugars per gallon for a good, strong barley wine. At this point, the use of the Malt Extract method of brewing will be fairly costly, and it will also be difficult to attain the high alcohol level of the barley wine using only the All Grain method, so I recommend utilizing the Partial Grain method when concocting a barley wine recipe.

For those eager to try out new and inventive approaches to beer brewing, I recommend choosing one or two herbal adjuncts for your homebrew recipe. A small amount of aromatic herb can add a unique spice and bouquet to your brew which will be uniquely yours. Mints and sages are good choices, and I recommend adding the herb to your homebrew recipe as you would a finishing hops.

You can see how the progression of homebrew recipes go – simple to complex. It is all up to what you and want to make. How much of a challenge do you want in your next homebrew project?