Browsing articles tagged with " Brewing Beer"
HOP HEADS
Personal experience showed Deborah Lewis and her husband, Jim, that finding home-brewing supplies could mean a trip to Pensacola or an order via the Internet. With new-found space available to them through their other business, Computers Plus, the couple opened Hop Heads.
“My husband and I have been brewing beer for years,” Deborah Lewis said. “It’s just a great hobby.”
With Hop Heads, they offer grains, barley, hops, supplies and advice.
“We’ll have kits that all you have to do when you get home is supply water,” Lewis also said.
Since Hop Heads opened early this May, Lewis said all the inventory has yet to arrive. Some plans include the addition of a grain mill for home brewers who like to crush their own. Other plans include classes and possibly a brewer’s club.
The entire concept of Hop Heads, Lewis added, comes from the pure enjoyment of the brewing.
“I haven’t had a bad batch of beer that we’ve made,” she said. “I think there’s something about making it yourself and the satisfaction.”
LOCATION: 26-C N.W. Racetrack Road, near Choctawhatchee High School
HOURS: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays through Fridays
TELEPHONE: 863-9742
EMAIL: info@hopheadsfwb.com
WEBSITE: www.hopheadsfwb.com
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INFINITE LASERS LLC
Very few things exist that Drew Cooper can’t engrave upon, he said.
Cooper and his daughter, Maddi Cooper, opened family-owned Infinite Lasers in April 2012, and by December they had relocated to a larger space in the McGuire’s plaza in Destin.
“When I was in the military, I handled a lot of the memorials and going-aways, and I had always been interested in the engraving aspect,” Cooper said, adding that he brings the old-school know how to the shop while Maddi brings the new-school.
“We can engrave on metal,” he continued. “It’s not the traditional engraving like an etch.”
They can also create custom awards for people, providing affordable recognition pieces for sports teams, squads and organizations as well as military memorials or honorariums. The Coopers can engrave on glass and acrylic, laptop computers and iPads, even guitars and rocks.
“It’s imagination,” Cooper said. “You bring in an idea and a piece of what you want engraved, and we’ll engrave it.”
Although Infinite Lasers did take over the phone number for the now-closed Destin Trophy shop, Cooper said “we’re a new business.”
LOCATION: 45 Harbor Blvd., Destin, near McGuire’s restaurant
HOURS: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays through Fridays
TELEPHONE: 424-3759
WEBSITE: www.infinitelasersllc.com
EMAIL: cooper@infinitelasersllc.com
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Americans have been brewing beer in their homes since colonial times — both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were home brewers. Even so, a recent explosion of interest in the hobby has created tricky questions for state alcohol regulators.
As of July 1, home brewing will be legal in all 50 states. But many states still prohibit home brewers from transporting their beer to club meetings or competitions. Some states also limit the amount a home brewer can produce in a year.
The remaining restrictions rankle home brewers, who say swapping samples and competing with other brewers is what their culture is all about. “You could just drink your home brew at home, but you’d be missing out on a large part of the community,’ said James Spencer, who hosts a popular podcast about home brewing.
Some states have been lax in enforcing such rules, but the hobby’s popularity and the growth of home brew supply stores is making it harder to justify a hands-off approach. About a million Americans brew their own beer at least once a year, according to the American Homebrewers Association. The group now has 37,000 members, up from 8,700 in 2005.
The tension has sparked legislative fights in several states. In 2010, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission shut down an annual home brew competition at the Oregon State Fair that had been held for 22 years. In response, the Oregon legislature scrapped state restrictions on where home brew can be made and consumed, and legalized fees and prizes at home brew competitions. Oregon home brewers also can engage in small-scale professional brewing at pubs.
Other states have taken similar action. Wisconsin lifted many of its restrictions in 2012, after the Schooner Home Brew Competition was spirited to a nearby city to appease uneasy city officials. And this year, Georgia and Iowa approved laws allowing home brewers to take their beer out of their homes. State lawmakers in Illinois and Missouri also are considering measures that would allow home brewers to participate in public festivals and competitions.
But the American Homebrewers Association advises its members to proceed cautiously in state capitols. “If it is technically not legal to share home brew at a club meeting in your state, but there has not been any enforcement of that law, it may not be worth exposure of home brew club activities, when changing the law is not guaranteed and could end up taking years,’ it says.
Moonshine memories
In some states, home brewing restrictions have deep cultural roots. The last two states to legalize home brewing were Alabama, which legalized it on May 9, and Mississippi, where it will be legal starting July 1. The legislation wasn’t an easy sell in either state—in part because both still have dry counties and memories of moonshine.
“We’ve been working on this for five years,’ said Craig Hendry, president of Raise Your Pints, which led the campaign in Mississippi. “One year it was an election year, so of course they’re not going to touch alcohol legislation then.”
Alabama’s debate was filled with filibusters and heated debate about the morality of allowing people to make their own beer.
“We’re just completely opening up the whole state to alcohol— every family, every home, every block,” Republican Rep. Arthur Payne said during a lengthy debate on the House floor. “I represent a district that has a strong family unit, and we don’t want to flood our neighborhoods with alcohol.”
Alabama’s anti-home brewing attitude was clear last fall when agents of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board visited Hop City, a craft beer and home brew supplier in Birmingham.
“They came in and raided us and said that we can’t do any home brewing business,’ said Spencer Overton, a former commercial brewer who was hired to be the store’s home brew manager.
According to Overton, the agents threatened felony charges and confiscated $7,000 worth of merchandise. “They took some books about home brewing, which was very Fahrenheit 451 of them,’ Overton said, referring to the futuristic Ray Bradbury novel in which fire fighters torch homes containing books.
Since home brewing was legalized, Hop City has stocked up on home brew supplies and Overton will be teaching home brew classes.
State Sen. Bill Holtzclaw said he pushed for the Alabama bill because many of his constituents are NASA scientists who were risking felony convictions—and their top-secret security clearances—by brewing at home.
“It was easy for me to get behind this as an individual rights issue, and as an economic development opportunity,” said Holtzclaw, a Republican.
He noted that many craft brewers started out brewing at home. “Rather than see it as threat, (craft brewers) see it as a way for folks who are really serious to leave the hobby realm and move over to the professional realm,” he said.
Swapping or selling?
During some of the state debates, local beer distributors have cautioned against allowing home brewers to act too much like commercial brewers without paying for licenses.
But most home brewers say they are determined to keep their craft distinct from the brewing business, even though the required equipment and ingredients are expensive.
“The spirit of home is not to make it to sell,’ said Spencer, the podcast host. “The spirit of home brewing is to make it to share.’
Sometimes this involves walking a difficult line. At a recent home brew competition in Washington, D.C. sponsored by craft brewer Samuel Adams, participating home brewers were required to cover their own costs, and all proceeds of the sold-out event were donated to charity.
“The beer is free, and Sam Adams is even providing some free snacks, but if you want to come you have to donate to a great local charity,’ the invitation said.
Josh Hubner, who heads DC Homebrewers, said his group negotiated a corkage fee with the hosting bar under a District of Columbia law that allows consumers to bring their own alcohol to a restaurant for a small fee. “If someone came and they said ‘ we want to drink the beer,’ we’d have to give it to them,’ he said. “People are doing this totally for the love of home brew.’
Hubner said he doesn’t want it to be legal for people to sell home brew. “All I’d really want would be a general acknowledgement that this is something that people do, and that it is beneficial to the community,’ he said.
Nevertheless, home brewing has become a training ground for craft brewers, which is why brewing companies such as Samuel Adams and Sierra Nevada have become huge supporters. Samuel Adams sponsors an annual national home brewing competition and mass produces the winning beers.
According to data from the Brewers Association, craft brewing sales have been increasing dramatically and taking over a greater share of the domestic beer market. Total craft beer sales grew 17 percent in 2012 and 15 percent in 2011.
Jim Koch, who founded Samuel Adams, started as a home brewer and created the first batch of Samuel Adams Boston Lager in his kitchen.
“Most craft brewing came out of home brewing,’ Koch said. “This activity that used to be illegal everywhere has created 100,000 jobs in the last 30 years and probably encouraged the responsible consumption of flavorful beer. From the state point of view, the home brewer that you just legalized might be the employer of people in your state in the future.’
Koch’s advice to state lawmakers is to give home brewers the benefit of the doubt while putting reasonable safeguards in place: “Home brewers have an enormous amount of respect for the dignity of beer, so cut them a little slack,’ he said.
Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.
James McEver credits his uncle for introducing him to brewing beer, and at 25, he recently became the new owner of Flying Barrel — a Frederick beer-making company for more than three decades.
McEver has been brewing for only a couple of years. He loved to cook and wanted to be a chef when he was a child but didn’t go to culinary school. In college, he drank lots of coffee and tea and read about them constantly.
“I was enthralled by coffee and tea,” McEver said. “That changed after working on the farm. After 100-degree weather being in the hot sun all day, someone passed me a nice cold Yuengling, and I understood. I’ve been trying new beers since then.”
Brewing his own beer was a natural extension of enjoying professionally brewed beer, McEver said.
“It deepens the appreciation for the beverage,” McEver said. “I love having a commercially brewed beer and being able to taste flavors that I recognize from some of my brews.”
McEver became the owner of Flying Barrel in March. He worked with previous owner Bob Frank for nearly two years learning the business, which recently moved from smaller quarters on South Carroll Street to a larger space on North Market Street in Frederick.
McEver’s father was in the Army, so he moved around a lot. He attended high school and college in northern New Jersey, “so I consider that to be where I’m from.”
His grandparents and aunt and uncle live in Frederick, where he visited often growing up.
“I felt totally comfortable moving here and setting down some roots,” McEver said, believing that Frederick offers the ideal home-brewing atmosphere.
“Frederick and home-brew go hand in hand,” the entrepreneur said. “I’m not sure if it’s the German heritage, or the great craft beer scene, or the agricultural presence, but there are a lot of home brewers in our area.”
He remembers coming home after closing up the shop one day. “My neighbor was brewing out in his yard with some buddies,” he said. “It was a great moment where I realized how communal of an activity brewing can be.”
McEver equates brewing beer to a backyard barbecue where everyone sits around the brewpot taking in the aromas and flavors, wondering how the batch is going to turn out.
“I have some customers who come in every two weeks like clockwork,” McEver said. “They keep their cellars full and are constantly brewing to keep beer or wine in their pipeline.”
The variety of people who home-brew is surprising, McEver said. His customers include yuppies, scientists, teachers, government workers, firefighters, and blue- and white-collar types.
In addition to selling ingredients, equipment and supplies, Flying Barrel lets customers rent brew kettles and offers guidance. The many steps involved in brewing can be intimidating to new brewers, McEver said, so having an experienced guide really helps getting started.
“We let the customer choose what they want to brew, and the options are pretty much only limited to their creativity,” McEver said. “I love it when a customer’s eyes light up when they realize they’ve entered into a new world of making your own beer, wine, cider, mead and any other concoctions you can think of.
“It takes a lot to make a great beverage and be able to reproduce success, but it’s a noble pursuit.”
Most of his friends have gone on to work on Wall Street for financial firms or large corporations.
“Even though I’m not making anywhere close to what they are, they’re sometimes jealous of all the fun I get to have,” McEver said. “They’re excited for me that I was able to make it happen and become my own boss. Some of my friends are aspiring to do the same, so I try to encourage them.”
McEver said he likes thought-provoking things.
“I tend to think about philosophy and spirituality a lot. I guess that’s what happens when your father and both grandfathers are ministers,” McEver said.
Dave Belcher is proud of his nephew.
“I mentored him, and I think he’ll be very successful,” Belcher said. “He’s a very smart kid. He got double bachelor’s degrees from Stevens Institute of Technology, and he was third in his class.
“I have faith in him, although I’m a little biased, but I think he’s got the right attitude and attention to detail to make it work.”
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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Alabama’s governor has signed legislation making home brewing legal.
Alabama had been the only state banning the home brewing of beer and wine, but the Legislature passed a bill Tuesday. A spokeswoman for Gov. Robert Bentley says he signed the bill Thursday. The new law takes effect immediately.
The American Homebrewers Association estimates there are 5,000 home brewers in Alabama, even though the practice has been illegal.
The new law allows them to make 15 gallons of beer or wine every three months. It cannot be sold.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Banks DIH Limited has installed a new Stromboli system as its multimillion brewery modernisation programme intensifies at Thirst Park, a release from the company said.
Matthew Kendall, Brew-master at Banks said the Stromboli system within the new Wort Kettle will provide many advantages over the present one such as higher wort quality, energy conservation, loss reduction and overall consistency of wort. Wort is the liquid extracted from the mashing process during the brewing of beer and it also contains the sugars that will be fermented by the brewing yeast to produce alcohol.
“This state-of-the-art system is presently installed in over 50 countries worldwide and having it set up here will propel Banks DIH Limited to a group of elite breweries that consider these and …..To continue reading, login or subscribe now.
The Herald-Sun | Patrick McLaurin
Triangle Brewing Company’s head brewer Rick Tufts, left, and co-owner Andy Miller are pictured inside their current location at 918 Pearl Street on Thursday, May 2, 2013.
The Herald-Sun| Patrick Mclaurin
The new warehouse space that will soon be home to the Traingle Brewing Company just around the corner at 812 Mallard Avenue.
The owners of Triangle Brewing Co., a production brewery in Durham that makes beer to sell in grocery stores, restaurants and at other venues, are planning to move the brewery to a location where they could open a taproom.
Rick Tufts, 39, and Andy Miller, 40, launched the brewery in 2007. The two first met in high school and became business partners. They lease 10,000 square feet of former warehouse space on Pearl Street for the brewery, Tufts said, and plan to buy a 22,000-square foot-building nearby at 812 Mallard St.
They have the building under contract, Tufts said, and are looking to close on the purchase this month. They plan to buy new equipment to increase their production capacity by four times. Tufts said they’d be able to brew up to 8,000 barrels a year.
They plan to decommission their Pearl Street operation and to sell most of their equipment. They hope to be brewing beer in the new location by the fall, and to have the taproom open about a month later.
“It gives us the opportunity to grow and double in size, and it’s going to allow us to have a taproom, and to continue to excel at what we do, which is making beer,” Tufts said of the plan.
As a production brewery, Triangle Brewing Co. doesn’t have a taproom on location, Tufts said. They do hold tours on Saturdays, however.
“We get well over 100 people on some weekends, and we’re still in the misunderstood part of Durham,” he said. “We just wanted to make beer and make quality beer, and the need for the taproom has developed itself,” he added.
In the brewery’s first year, it produced 150 barrels of beer, Tufts said. This year, they plan on producing more than 4,000 barrels.
Their beer is sold in grocery stores and by independent stores. They’ve started selling in Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Wilmington.
They can their beer in Durham, Tufts said. They use cans because that increases the beer’s shelf-life, he said, and caters to people who are “on the go.”
“Here in North Carolina, which is a great state, we’ve got the ocean, and we’ve got the mountains,” Tufts said. “You can’t take glassware to the beach, you can’t take it hiking very easily; you can’t take it to the pool. So we make beer for people on the go…”
Tufts said he went into the beer brewing business when he needed a change. He’s a developmental psychologist by training who worked for several years with the TEACCH Autism Program at UNC Hospitals.
He said his business partner, Miller, studied hotel restaurant and institutional management at East Carolina University in Greenville, and had restaurant experience.
“I loved working with families, the only issue was that every family I dealt with, I was dealing with them at a very sad moment,” Tufts said. “I was trying to help them above that, and it became emotionally draining.”
He said he went to brewing school at the American Brewers Guild in Vermont, and worked as an apprentice at Flying Fish Brewing Co. in New Jersey. He said he saw beer production as a means to bring people pleasure.
“I would do that again in a heartbeat…but to be able to make something that other people could enjoy on a social level, as opposed to … dealing with people at their most vulnerable moments – it was time for me to change,” he said.
Tufts said they see the planned investment as part of the development of Durham. Their targeted location is empty, but previously housed a feed mill for Southern States, an agricultural products supplier, said Al Frega, an officer in the company that owns the building.
“We’re not in the best location, but Durham is changing significantly, and renovations and downtown revitalization is coming our direction, and we’ve made an investment to be in this part of Durham,” Tufts said.
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It’s a mixture of chemistry, cooking, alcohol and precision. Home brewing of beer, cider and mead has developed into a light-hearted and thriving practice among Dartmouth students and faculty.
Campus brewing may eventually broaden to include wine production, which would be legalized under a bill that awaits the signature of Gov. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. The state legislature approved the bill last month.
New Hampshire law currently permits residents over 21 to brew beer as long as it is not intended for sale. Cider production is also allowed, so long as its alcohol level does not exceed 6 percent.
For his 21st birthday last month, Seth Brown received a beer brewing kit, which contained a glass, fermenter and jug, as well as yeasts and molt extract sugars.
With a friend, Brown carried out the four-hour process of boiling, mixing and siphoning the liquid. The first part of the process is brewing, during which the malt extract is boiled with water. Grains are often added to the mixture to enhance the flavor.
After transferring the liquid to another container for cooling, yeast is added to spur fermentation.
While cleanliness is imperative throughout the process, it is especially important during fermentation to prevent a sour, bacteria-infested product.
“If I wasn’t sanitary enough, I would have been able to tell because the beer would smell horrendous, like a frat basement,” Brown said.
The beer is then transferred to a bottle, which is stored for two weeks to allow for carbonation.
Brown has yet to taste the final product.
“I didn’t realize how chemistry-heavy it would be,” he said.
Safety and Security director Harry Kinne said that home brewing is allowed on campus if the participant is of legal age and not in a residence hall that forbids alcohol.
Brewing beer and other types of alcohol like mead and cider have been a staple pastime for Upper Valley residents, said Andrew Ager, president of the Upper Valley Beer Society and an employee the Registrar’s office. Ager has spent his free time over the past 19 years brewing beer in a makeshift lab in his garage.
His equipment has evolved to be professional, complete with an outside burner and a 15-gallon kettle.
“As a non-scientist, I ended up learning a lot about chemical reactions and yeast biology,” Ager said. “It opens up a whole social world as well. The minute you say, ‘Oh yeah, I make beer,’ they want to talk to you, they want to try it.”
Members of the Upper Valley Beer Society meet monthly to discuss home brewed beer, mead and cider.
The group organizes tastings and food events, and Ager said he has made a number of friends in the Upper Valley through his brewing connections.
Graduate students at Dartmouth, particularly those in the sciences, are also active in the home brewing scene. The Graduate Students Association hosts an annual home brewing competition, which Ager has judged for the past five years.
Although brewing beer costs more than buying a six-pack at Stinson’s, Brown said he enjoys the hobby.
“It’s reminiscent of a time when people were self-sustaining and self-sufficient,” he said. “And it makes me feel like a badass.”
The “People’s Republic of Boulder” has acquired a reputation based on its proliferation of liberals.
So it’s likely few would guess Boulder’s conservative faction kept the town dry for practically 50 years surrounding the age of prohibition.
And while home brewing seems little more than a hobby for the eccentric relative or coworker most of us seem to know — those home breweries in the 1970s were thought to be crazy at the time —it led to innovations that are among the foundations of today’s microbrew industry.
Deep in the archives, Boulder still has some surprises up its sleeve, a fact Julie Schumaker knows all too well.
As curator of exhibits and facilities at the Boulder History Museum, Schumaker has followed the thread of many historic tales, and this year she explored Boulder County’s history of brewing beer.
A “hot topic right now,” Schumaker said the history of brewing has been on the museum’s radar for years. So, with a gap in the museum’s schedule and an obvious statewide and national interest in the practice, an exhibit was born — “Beer! Boulder’s History on Tap.”
Far from just following a trend, though, Schumaker said the exhibit offers new perspectives on this enigmatic city — and, as historians argue, perhaps insight into what Boulder’s future holds.
“History repeats itself,” Rick Sinner said, referencing a cliché made all too real.
A local collector of all things Boulder County, especially those advertising businesses, Sinner has done his research. And what he’s found from weeks of sifting through old newspapers and artifacts is that a community can’t help but repeat its own history.
“You really have to study it, to take note of it, and it’ll just hit you over the head,” Sinner said. “We’re right there today, and that was 100 years ago.”
Adds Mona Lambrecht of CU’s Heritage Center: “People learning about their history is important — period.”
And while she admits she might be biased as a Boulder historian and genealogist, she said that understanding a city’s history forms a bond between resident and town.
“It grounds people and creates a connection to where they live,” she said. “You really connect to the community in a different way if you understand its history.”
Even a beer history.
Because as Schumaker argues, “Boulder hasn’t always been the Boulder they moved to. It’s one of the things people will find out.”
It all started with Boulder City Brewery in 1876 (not to be confused with today’s Boulder Beer).
A German tradition, as Lambrecht said, brewing was historically well-received. “Wherever they (the German communities) brought brewing, the locals enjoyed it. It was a welcomed custom.”
And so it began.
Though the city’s beer source eventually folded in 1897, it lived on through others, including the original Crystal Springs Brewing shortly after.
But as prohibition swept across the United States, beer’s ubiquity was ended. Boulder was already a few steps ahead of prohibition, having slipped into a “dry” status years before the rest of the nation. In 1907, the Better Boulder Party and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union wiped clean the city’s drinking presence, far outlasting the county or even state and nation’s prohibition laws.
“Boulder’s always had a higher standard for themselves,” Schumaker said, and for that time in history, “getting rid of the bars would elevate the town.”
Decades later — and after 15 elections — the city became “wet” again in 1967, and while it had been happening illegally for years, home brewing’s first surge powered through.
By the late 1970s, home brewing had become a creative culture, driven by a “grassroots awareness and a desire to learn about beer,” said Charlie Papazian, a brewing pioneer who notes that, while beer is a part of Boulder’s history, “it’s also a big part of my history.”
As home brewing developed, Papazian taught hundreds of others what he knew. By 1978, he had formed the American Homebrewers Association with Charlie Matzen. Many asked why such an organization was necessary, but Papazian said he found it offered “an opportunity for the community that was fun and meaningful.
“People could establish their own personal vision of what it could be.”
And it’s that creative process, and especially the dream behind it, that fueled the craft-brew fire.
“Beer and brewing in Boulder has been about so many people and the communities it has helped come together,” Papazian said. “It all started with home brewing, but obviously it has transcended to a lot of craft brewers and craft awareness in Boulder County that rivals any other part of the country.”
“Ground zero,” as Papazian calls it, “Boulder was kind of a vibrant starting point of community building that has really defined what craft brewers are today.”
Schumaker agreed.
Filling Boulder’s many “dry” years was Coors Brewing Co. in Golden, she said, and while it did well in producing a consistent light lager, it also set the stage for a desire for variety.
“It really does give you a reason for why craft brewing is so huge,” Schumaker said. “For 50 years, there was just light lager.”
Enter Boulder Beer in 1979, the state’s first microbrewery and the nation’s second, following a California operation that has since closed. Boulder Beer now holds the title of longest running craft brewery to open since prohibition nationally, Schumaker said.
Since then, the microbrewery world lives and breathes across Boulder County, with new breweries and brew pubs popping up every month.
Within her “six-pack,” as she calls the barrels stacked tall in the exhibit, are Boulder Beer, Avery Brewing, Twisted Pine Brewery, Upslope Brewing Co. — a new but rapidly expanding brewery on the scene — and Longmont’s Left Hand Brewing and Oskar Blues Brewery.
Schumaker said the museum’s exhibit is sort of an education for both the out-of-state residents she expects to come through but also the locals who are diving into their city’s history for the first time.
A “tap wall” along the back shows the real variety offered. And as visitors end their tour with the great tap lineup, they get to become part of the exhibit with an informal survey created by Schumaker and exhibit designer Seth Frankel.
Take a sticker — blue for men, pink for women — and plop it where your “preferred palette” lies. From hops to malts, light to dark, Schumaker said she hopes the wall will showcase tastes and get folks engaged in what they’ve created.
“BEER! BOULDER’S HISTORY ON TAP.” The sudsy exhibit runs through Oct. 27 at the Boulder History Museum, 1206 Euclid Ave., Boulder. Admission is $6 for adults, $4 for seniors, $3 for students. 303-449-3463 or boulderhistory.org.
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Students taking classes in beer brewing at Colorado State University are going to get more hands-on training.
The school is planning to install a microbrewery in the Lory Student Center, right next to the venerable Ramskeller pub, to give students real-world experience.
That’s right – students will be getting credit for brewing and tasting beer as they prepare for careers in the growing microbrewery industry.
Next fall, CSU will serve up a heady new major — fermentation science and technology.
“Because we’re in an area with a bunch of breweries already being so prominent, it actually brings an appreciation for the different types of brew that would be available,” CSU student Vanessa Ybrra told 7NEWS photojournalist Major King.
The goal is not to compete with Fort Collins’ thriving microbreweries but to provide an expanded educational facility where students can master the science of crafting great beer, said Jeff McCubbin, dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences.
“However, we do envision that students in the future may be able to produce very small amounts of select beers that might be available for consumption,” McCubbin said.
“Our local industry (leaders) think it’s very important to have an academic program because some people evolve into an interest in brewing beer without the academic science background that goes with it,” the dean added.
At least one local craft brewer gives his blessing.
“I think if they were able to offer some of the beers that their students fermented it might grow attention toward the program. So it makes perfect sense to me,” said Sean Nook, owner of Black Bottle Brewery.
Students having a cold pint at the venerable ‘Skellar pub toasted plans for the CSU microbrewery.
“I’m all for it and I think it’s great and to just kind of further people’s education in the brewery class,” said grad student Nick Lemmel.
Construction of the brewery/lab next to the Ramskellar should be completed in about two years.
Copyright 2013 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
REIDSVILLE — April is the inaugural North Carolina Beer Month and Eric Smith couldn’t be happier.
Smith, 38, is a home brewer — an excellent one at that — and a fan of beer. He’s doing his part to get the word out about craft beers and brewers in the state.
He has a blog — ncbeers.blogspot.com — that details his visits to craft breweries in the state. He participates in brewing demonstrations, attends beer festivals and anything else that will get others as excited about home brewing as he is.
He’s also celebrating beer month in an appropriate fashion.
“My goal for the month of April is to only drink North Carolina beer,” Smith said.Continue Reading
It all began for Smith with a simple beer kit, a birthday gift from his wife, Kelly, in 1996.
An untapped talent emerged.
Smith, after years of brewing, can break down the ingredients of any beer he drinks.
“I can taste a beer and tell you what hops were used and typically what malt was used and typically what yeast was used,” Smith said.
An impressive feat, but Smith said it’s something he picked up from years of tasting the ingredients while brewing beer. He tastes them before and during the process. Not many brewers do this, according to Smith.
He is also a talented brewer. Smith keeps several recipes on file and brews according to his mood. Sometimes he goes to a home-brew supply store and creates his recipe while he’s there. Other times, he drinks a beer he likes and he wants to recreate that taste.
He’s often asked why he doesn’t create his own brewery.
“I already turned one hobby into a job,” Smith said. “I don’t need two.”
His job as a welder is something he’s been doing since he was 10 while watching and learning from his father. Smith turned this hobby into a job after he was laid off from his airline job in 2002.
He is happy with welding as a job. Smith likes brewing, but he said he doesn’t feel like brewing every day. It will stay a hobby.
A hobby that still keeps him busy, even if he doesn’t brew every day.
Smith is in the opening stages of a project that will take him to every brewery in the state. It took a year to plan, and he hopes to finish his statewide tour by the end of the year or at least by March 2014.
His reputation as a brewer often precedes him, and he gets a more extensive tour than advertised. His wife often acts as his driver on these tours. It’s only fair since she’s the one who got him started in the first place.
When he’s not touring breweries and making beer, Smith said he will continue to encourage others to take up home brewing. Beer kits are inexpensive, and hobbyists can invest in as little a $100-150 for a top-of-the-line brewery system.
And it’s not hard to make the beer.
“If you can boil water, then you can brew beer,” Smith said.
Brewing is not the only thing on Smith’s mind. He is interested in several topics and enjoys sitting at a bar getting to know the person beside him.
“I don’t care what your religion is,” Smith said, “I don’t care how you voted. If you like to drink a good beer, then I’m going to sit down and drink a good beer with you.”
Just remember not to bet him in guessing what kind of beer you are drinking.
Contact Brad Kesler at 373-7060, and follow @Brad_Kesler on Twitter.
