“It always tastes better when it’s yours.”
Maybe it’s been the poor conditions for most outdoor activities this winter. Maybe it’s the popularity of plentiful microbrew pubs around the state. Or, maybe people have decided they have a taste for something they just can’t get elsewhere.
Whatever the reasons, home-brewers and suppliers have tapped into a wicked good winter’s ale this year and a slight resurgence from the boom of the 1990s.
Lewiston resident Jason Dumont said he usually brews about three batches of beer a year. But just this winter, he’s already bottled four batches and has plans for a new recipe he wants to try.
Axis Natural Foods on Center Street in Auburn can’t keep home-brew starter kits on the shelf and is ordering supplies every couple of weeks, said store employee Rosanna Toth.
The Hop Shop on Portland Road in Gray, the only local store that deals exclusively in home-brewing and wine-making, sold at least 30 home-brew starter kits during this past Christmas season, said Ed McDowell, store owner of 12 years.
And why not? As McDowell said, “If you can boil water, you can make beer.”
Dumont, who has been home-brewing for about four years, agreed that the process is easy. The difficult part is having the patience to brew a good batch.
Patiently waiting
“I’m very impatient,” said Dumont. “I have a hard time waiting for it to finish. Once your beer is done, it’s nice to know that you made it. And it’s nice to open a bottle and drink it.”
The absolutely essential components for good beer, according to McDowell, who holds a biology degree and started brewing in the 1980s as a broke and underaged college student, are sanitized equipment and enough patience to let the ingredients do their work.
“When people come complaining about a batch, a lot of times it turns out that people get too impatient, and they killed the yeast by throwing it into the wort (unfermented malt liquid) before it’s cool enough,” said McDowell. “Contamination is a big one, too. When something gets in there that shouldn’t, it will turn funky and nasty.”
Now comfortable enough with brewing so he doesn’t rely on a recipe, Dumont recalled his first batch as his “skunk” batch.
“A cat hair, stuff in the water, anything that’s not been completely sanitized can ruin a batch,” said Dumont. “Another batch that I had to throw out was because I used a malt extract, got called away from the pot and let it burn.”
Dumont recommended setting aside two to three hours to brew and more time to clean up the mess afterward. He allows at least two hours for his wort to cool before adding yeast. Dumont’s process, from start to quaff, takes about two months.
McDowell noted that experienced brewers will wait longer. However, he recommended that beginners pop open their bottles within three to five weeks to get a basic understanding of the process and then adjust for future batches.
Skunked
McDowell pointed out that using the wrong colored bottles will turn a beer “skunky.” Brown bottles that keep light out, preventing chemical reactions, work best. Even green bottles can change the beer. However, he added, some people prefer a skunky taste and smell.
Over the years, he has made plenty of mistakes and enjoys helping other home-brewers avoid them, McDowell said. Dumont noted that people who home-brew like to share their experiences and, of course, their products. It’s something that he and his brother started out doing together as a hobby, and they continue to compare notes.
A quick search on the World Wide Web on home-brew finds more than 10 million sites, which include chat rooms, online publications and personal Web pages. That’s proof enough that home-brewers are eager to share their techniques, recipes and critiques.
“Everyone you talk to will tell you something different,” said McDowell. “Everything about beer depends.” He referred to home-brewers’ different takes on ingredients, process and the amount of time it takes.
Recipes and brewing processes run the gamut from minimal to idiosyncratic. But all beers start out with the same basic four ingredients: water, malt, hops and yeast. Dumont adds sugar and different flavors to the list. And as far as he’s concerned, the more hops the better. His most recent batch went through a triple boiling process that used three different types of hops.
Required equipment is as simple as a big pot, a couple of big buckets, some tubing, bottles and caps. Starter kits run from $12 for recipe-and-ingredient packages to $100 for deluxe kits, complete with ingredients and specialized equipment that includes calibrated measuring devices.
Dumont’s brewing process requires two six-gallon buckets (actually holding five gallons of liquid each), a strainer (which looks like a shower cap that fits over the top of the bucket), an airlock, food-grade plastic tubing, sanitized caps, a capper and clean bottles.
Dumont said he rarely brews in the summer because he gets too hot standing over the stove. Also, he prefers the natural coolness of his laundry room in the winter to store his bottled beer.
He added that there’s nothing better in the summer than opening his own beer. “It always tastes better when it’s yours.”
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