Making your own beer can be fun

I don’t remember much of his presidency, but I have a newfound respect for Jimmy Carter. No, I’m not talking about his attempts at world peace or any of his other charitable deeds. I’m talking about his decision to sign a bill that permitted home brewing of small amounts of beer.

OK, before I start, I need to make clear I am not a lush. My wife made me write that disclaimer. She, for some reason, thinks that because I want to brew my own beer I must have a problem. I do not I just like good beer, and there’s nothing more exciting than making something with your own two hands and then enjoying it.

So a few weeks ago, after doing a lot of taste testing of my friend Trey’s homemade brew, I got my first crack at it.

I sacrificed my normal Saturday sleeping-in to pull myself out of bed at 7:30 and drive over to his garage to get started. One thing I learned brewing beer takes time.

The other thing I learned you have to be patient.

As I rolled up, my friend was already hard at work. The mash was steeping in a converted Gatorade container, the ones the sports teams use, and we started talking about the finer points of beer.

I’ve always considered myself the little black sheep of our family because, unlike my brother, I enjoy a good adult beverage or two to wind down. In fact, in college, there was a time I enjoyed a not-so-good beverage or two. Or so.

But as I got older and my palette more refined, I got tired of the watered-down, mass-produced beers on the market.

So I started searching for smaller, more hearty beers from such breweries as Dogfish Head, Bell’s and Charlottesville’s own Starr Hill.

After a while though I wanted to give it a try myself.

Without having a true home of my own at the moment — OK I’m not homeless but also not exactly equipped to brew — I took up my friend’s offer to give him a hand.

He’s one of those guys who when he gets into a hobby, he gets into it.

So when I walked in to start brewing, every thing was set up.

The outside burners were lit, the multitude of pots needed to brew up the batch were cleaned and ready to go and he had all the ingredients set up.

To be completely honest, I never really thought about all the work that goes into brewing, but there are a lot of steps, and a lot of waiting in between.

As we waited for the mash, (that’s the barley being cooked) he showed me all of the tricks of the trade.

Finally, after an hour of waiting, we got to work. We drained the wort, put in a big stainless steel drum and started boiling.

Now we had to wait again. I never thought seven gallons of liquid would take so long to boil. As the steam lifted off the surface, I couldn’t help but think of old Virginia moonshiners who probably did something very similar on a cold Saturday morning.

Only our brewing is legal.

Finally, we got around to adding the hops to the beer, which at least meant we had something to do for an hour.

We were making a 60-minute IPA, so we had to continously add hops to the liquid. Hops are the little flower clusters that add flavor, aroma and bite to the beer, and we wanted ours to be full of hops.

After weeks of waiting, I can report my first brew session was a success.

The beer was exactly how we envisioned it better, actually.

And I’ve only had one glass of it, just so my wife doesn’t call me a lush again.

Now I’ve just got to find myself a house so I can start my own operation. I’m sure she’s going to love finding out about that.