The idea of home-brewed beer and mead made from homegrown organic ingredients fermenting happily in a kitchen cabinet appeals to me. I’m not a big consumer of beer but a good beer is nice to share with friends periodically and it’s cheaper and more satisfying to brew wholesome high-quality beer than it is to buy it.
Weirdly, I have lived downwind from two separate breweries – the Anheuser Busch Brewery in St. Louis (this did not smell pretty) and the original Redhook Brewery in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle (this did smell pretty). I didn’t remember this fact until I had already well begun to read about home brewing and it gave me a chuckle.
When I first began looking into home brewing, I came upon a book that attracted me immediately: The Homebrewer’s Garden by Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher. This book details not only the growing of additive herbs and fruits and their attributes in relation to brewing but also, for those who have the space and inclination, the growing of hops and grains. The information is presented clearly and for anyone who is herbally inclined, it’s a book well worth owning.
There are some great home brewing tutorials online, among them the videos and tips at Seven Bridges, an organic home brew supply cooperative in the San Francisco Bay Area. For online recipes, I was pleased to find the huge variety available at Beer Town, the website of the Brewers’ Association.
Here in Chicagoland, we have a reasonably stout variety (sorry, couldn’t resist) of brewing supply shops, such as:
BevArt Brewing & Winemaking Supply in Evergreen Park
Chicagoland Winemakers in Elmhurst
Fox Valley Homebrew in Aurora
Home Brew Shop, Ltd. in St. Charles
In Central Illinois:
Something’s Brewin’ in Galesburg
As for books, there are two standard introductory texts you’ll find widely recommended: How to Brew by John Palmer (the text of the first edition is available online) and The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian. I prefer Palmer’s writing style but his book doesn’t include information on kegging; Papazian’s does. The idea of cleaning, sanitizing, filling and capping 50 bottles by hand every time a batch is ready doesn’t really appeal to me. I haven’t actually gotten started with brewing yet, but when I do, I plan to use a Party Pig (cute! and it even has a jacket!), a handy device that makes kegging less complicated and more affordable to those of us who already number ourselves among Head Bottlewashers and don’t need more bottles to wash, thank you very much (!).
Once the basics as presented by Palmer and/or Papazian have been learned (and there is a lot to learn, granted), there’s a book by Randy Mosher full of the art and lore of brewing along with great information and recipes called Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass. This book will appeal strongly to you if you’re a creative type. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart as it’s loaded with information. Clone brews lie on the path, as well, but I’ll get there when I get there.
Once I have a few brew batches’ worth of experience, I’ll post some recipes here.
