Home-brewing on a comeback

The pilgrims were part the United States’ original home-brewing boom, and Prohibition was part of its original bust. Today the hobby is on the rise again.

“It’s growing,´ said Gary Glass, director of the Boulder-based American Homebrewers Association. “It’s the healthiest it’s been in a long time. It’s gone through some ups and downs over the years.”

“Over the years” really means something in this context.

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“Home-brewing is an American tradition dating back to the Mayflower, probably even Jamestown,” Glass said. “The water they had access to wasn’t very safe. Beer was actually a family beverage, but that all ended with Prohibition.”

When Prohibition ended in 1933, home-brewing remained illegal due to “a bureaucratic error,” Glass said.

It wasn’t legalized until 1978 – the very year home-brewing luminary Charlie Papazian co-founded the association. After enjoying steady growth in the 1980s, the association’s membership boomed from 10,000 in 1990 to more than 20,000 by 1995. Then the bulls fled the home-brewing market for Wall Street, the bears did the opposite, and the association’s membership began a precipitous decline.

“Home-brewing tends to do well in recessions,” Glass said. “We bottomed out around 2001 with 8,500 members, but we’ve seen a slow, steady growth since then.”

Membership brings discounts at brewpubs and events, a subscription to Zymurgy magazine and access to a host of online home-brewing resources. It ballooned 20 percent in 2006 to 12,000 members.

In the past, the traditional home-brewer was a professional male in his late 30s or early 40s, Glass said. “Now we’re seeing younger people getting into it, and more women getting into it,” he added.

Glass doesn’t think this expansion is an indicator of economic doom and gloom. “I think this is a different trend,” he said. “People are looking for things that are made locally, things that are handcrafted. That coincides with buying organic. These days people are brewing extreme beers barley-wine, double India pale ales … double anything.”

Belgian ales, wood-aged beers and less alcoholic “session beers” are also popular today. “You can drink them without getting intoxicated,” Glass said of the latter.

“You’ve got the ultimate selection when you’re home-brewing. You can brew anything you want,” he added. “It’s a great hobby. The quality of the ingredients is far better than it ever has been, so the quality of the end product is better. People used to talk about the home-brew twang, how it didn’t taste quite right. Now people are brewing beer that’s every bit as good as the craft breweries’, and in some cases it’s better.”

It’s also a very democratic hobby, Glass said. “People can spend several thousand dollars on equipment, but you can also get started with 50 bucks.”

More Boulder County home-brewers have gotten started at What’s Brewin’ than anywhere else. On March 28, the store moved to its new home in east Boulder. What’s Brewin’ is Colorado’s longest-standing home-brewing retailer,

After working as a hot tub repairman, What’s Brewin’ co-owner John Arthur opened his store in 1992 on 8th St. Today he’s got a nickname.

“Adam Avery (of Avery Brewing) calls me ‘The Godfather of the Boulder Microbrewery Scene,'” he said, noting that several local microbrewery founders were once his customers. “All of the microbreweries are home-brewers who went pro.”

Arthur said he hoped to build on the popularity of other fermentation-related products at the new location. Winemaking and mead-making are both popular. Kombucha-making, keefer-making and yogurt-making may follow in their wake.

Home-brewing “is kind of like cooking,” Arthur said. “People have gotten tired of the boring mega-swill – Bud, Coors and Miller – and they’re brewing unusual specialty beers at home.”

After opening What’s Brewin’ in 1992, Arthur enjoyed immediate success. But three Front Range home-brewing stores boomed to 15 by the mid-1990s.

“Other shops started springing up like mushrooms all over the Denver area,´ said Arthur, who opened a second Longmont location in 1994 and moved his Boulder store to Bluff Street in 1995. He shuttered the Longmont shop in 1997 as the home-brewing hobby went into free fall.

By the end of the dot-com boom in 2001, only three or four Front Range home-brewing stored remained. Today there are about twice that many.

“We’re countercyclical to the economy,” Arthur said. “When things go south, we pick up.”

He said that business has been good at What’s Brewin’ this year.

“Our numbers are growing,” Arthur said, quickly pointing out that it’s a flimsy economic indicator because his only Boulder competition closed in 2006. He also said that Levi, his son and What’s Brewin’ co-owner, has helped attract a younger customer base.

“That’s not much of a stretch, a 26-year-old guy and beer,” he said.

During all the ups and downs of home-brewing, many home-brewers have remained constants in the local scene – like Bob Kauffman, U.S. Postal Service employee who’s brewed beer at his home north of Lafayette since 1989.

Like many home-brewers, Kauffman first took up the hobby for economic reasons.

“When my wife and I first got together, I didn’t have much money to buy good beer, and we both drank a lot of beer,” he said.

Kauffman typically bottles a batch or two a month, or around 200 gallons a year. He’s also entered competitions and served as president of Hop Barley and the Alers, a local brew club.

Kauffman said he likes home-brewing for two main reasons – it’s creative, and it’s social. “I love tasting a beer and wondering if I could make it,” he said. “Beer is a very social beverage. It lends itself to sitting down and talking with somebody and getting to know them.”

Kauffman’s advice to aspiring brewers: “Join a home-brewing club and get together with other home-brewers. You’ll skip a lot of mistakes, and have fun with it. Brew beers you like, and if other people like them too then great.”

Since both Kauffman and his wife Caroline have similar tastes in beer, they have a deal.

“I keep the gardener in good beer and she keeps the brewer in good food,” he said.

Home-brewing information

American Homebrewers Association: www.beertown.org/homebrewing

What’s Brewin’, 2752 47th St., Boulder, 303-444-9433: www.whatsbrewin.biz

Hop Barley and the Alers: www.hopbarley.org

From June 21 to June 23, National Homebrewers Conference is being held in Denver at the Four Points by Sheraton Southeast. This is the first time the event has been in Colorado since 1994.