Local beer enthusiasts satisfy their taste for the expensive stuff by making their own
Boiling up a brewski
Bill Koch walks toward the stove and peers intently into the steaming pot, first checking the temperature gauge before determining this batch of brew has a ways to go.
“When this first starts to boil, it goes nuts,” he said, “and if I don’t watch it, the foam will come up, boil over and create a real bad mess.”
In the process of brewing beer, the waiting game is best played with friends, and on this summer night in a Grand Island basement, a batch of pale ale is being made by three home brewers who between them have 52 years of beer-making experience. Soon hops will be added, but for now the trio is multitasking – swigging on some home brew, while creating some new.
Home brewing attracts people of all ages and occupations, many of whom form clubs like Sultans of Swig, Brewbonic Plague and Niagara Association of Home Brewers. Brewing your own beer not only saves money, but is fun, with interest in the hobby increasing as the economy tumbles, according to one merchant. “Interest in wine-and beer-making goes up when the economy goes down,” noted Becky Dyster of Niagara Traditional Home Brew, a beer-and wine-making supply store in Tonawanda. “Younger people seem more educated about good beer than I was in my early 20s. We have a lot of people getting into it.”
Last month, a national home-brew conference in Oakland, Calif., attracted 1,200 brewers including a local contingent from the Niagara Association of Home Brewers. Locally, the Western New York Homebrew Competition held yearly in May draws entries from across the country. Readers of “Brew Your Own” magazine, meanwhile, reported pouring more than $57 million annually into supplies and equipment, brewing 4,049,500 gallons of beer in the process.
“We brew to share,” said Keith Curtachio, an information technology director for the University at Buffalo. “Beer is a social stimulant.”
The process
At the moment, all eyes in the Koch basement are on a boiling cauldron of wort, a brewing term that defines the conversion of starch in grain to sugar. The goal is to prevent a boil-over, and its sticky aftermath. Around this pot, everyone has a boil-over story.
“My best boil-over was here in the driveway,” said Tim Collins, an engineer and certified brew judge with 23 years’ experience. “But when a boil-over happens on a kitchen stove and you have a wife?”
Distractions could doom a brew night. That’s why an alarm will be triggered when the wort hits 202 degrees. It will remind the brewers that their next step — the addition of bittering hops — is imminent.
“Beer is sweet and sour,” Koch explained. “Sweet is the malt from the grain. Sour is the hops. By balancing the sweet and the bitter you make beer.”
Koch, who just retired from American Axle & Manufacturing in Cheektowaga, makes it sound easy, but his words are backed by years of experience. He crushes his own grain, a step that adds hours to the process that many brewers choose to avoid. All-grain brewing may take novices six to eight hours to brew, while extract beer — from packaged and purchased malt — shortens the brew time considerably.
“What’s your hop schedule?” asked Collins, in reference to the three additions of hops that will define the beer in stages. For this pale ale, bittering hops are first added, followed by flavoring hops and finished with aroma hops.
Home-brewed beer is routinely made in five-gallon batches, each batch filling two cases with 24 12-ounce bottles. Many brewers avoid the bottling process altogether, opting to store their brew in stainless steel kegs. Growlers — brown half-gallon jugs — are used to transport keg beer.
The shelf life of home brew is one year, with stronger beers lasting longer, according to Collins. The alcohol content averages from 5 to 8 percent. For comparison purposes, the alcohol content of average store-bought beer ranges around 4.5 percent.
“We still buy beer,” said Koch, “just to see what the big guys are doing.”
Once a hobby
The first lesson learned on the road to brewing is that home brewers have expensive beer tastes. A trip to a specialty beer store like Consumers Beverage could cost an eclectic drinker upwards of $60 for a case of mixed beer, which is precisely the reason why many people choose to make their own.
“When you’re well into home brewing, you become a beer snob,” said Dyster, whose husband, Paul, is the mayor of Niagara Falls. “We didn’t realize it was happening. We always were do-it-yourselfers, always had a big vegetable garden. We canned, so this seemed like a logical thing to do.”
The beer-brewing hobby led the Dysters to launch a wine-and- beer supply business 17 years ago. Today, Becky Dyster and two sons man the store, where a starter home brew kit including fermenter, siphoning equipment, sanitizer, hydrometer, bottle brush and more costs under $100.
“Sanitation is critically important when it comes to home brewing,” said Becky Dyster. “You need to understand germ theory because you are creating the perfect environment for germs to grow.”
John DePaolo, a Buffalo attorney and member of the Sultans of Swig, makes beer that is not readily available in the area. His latest batch? A strong and flavorful wheat-based Belgian Tripel. The timing of his next batch, in which he plans to use some yeast he received from a brewery in Montreal, depends on reserving his home kitchen.
“You have brew day, then bottling or kegging, and maybe another time to siphon off the sediment to help clarify,” DePaolo said. “The situation often depends on cooperation from others in the house. Some brewers have been banished to an outdoor area, where they use propane burners.”
Social suds
“The people part is the real reason you do it,” said Curtachio, who at the moment is cradling an unopened bottle of Imperial Stout brought back from the brew conference in Oakland.
“You get to know somebody better that way, too,” added Collins. “I would never have known Keith is a fantastic gourmet chef until he made food at one of the events.”
Home brew communities, it seems, evolve from event to event. From summer picnics to fall festivals, the parties are based on pairings of beer and food. Brewers routinely mix their beers. Rarely will they stick with one kind at one sitting.
“Beer is far more versatile than wine,” pronounced Collins. “We have a beer that’s good with cheesecake—the Imperial Stout — which is also perfect with steak or ice cream. I found an Oktoberfest that is fabulous with pizza, but my favorite is Beck’s (Oktoberfest) with pizza.”
As the Imperial Stout is opened, the room grows silent, and cups are filled with the hearty, dark brew once made for Russian czars. A few moments to swirl, several more to sniff, and then the moment these brewers have been waiting for all night — the swallow.
“Can you taste the raisins, and currants and plums?” Koch cried out. “The flavors are all there.”
So are the calories, 500 in a 12-ounce bottle it is estimated. But think of the nutritional value, Curtachio urged.
“This beer has food in it,” he said.
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