Brew’s Clues XV: Homebrew Club
Is it just me, or does everyone homebrew these days? Or at least someone everyone knows? It just seems to come up a lot.
Observe:
(Scene: At a Party. Saturday Night.)
-Random Girl: Hey, this Moon beer is great!
-Me (to self): Uh, sure, that Coors crap, but she is cute…
(to her): Yeah! Blue Moon, it’s certainly attempting to be a Belgian White…
-RG: Belgian? White? You know about beer?
-Me: Uh, well yeah, I brew a little bit. Heh heh.
-RG: Really? That’s pretty cool. My boyfriend does too – he just made an all-grain Kent Goldings dry-hopped special bitter with some honey as an adjunct.
-Me (sidling off): Uh, awesome! Hey, I’m parched – is that a 30 of Schlitz I see?
(End scene)
Yup. Seems like everyone is a homebrewer. I can meet a new group of people and instead of playing the, “Oh you went to [blank] College? Do you know [blank]?” game, I can play the, “Oh you’re brewing a [blank]? What malts are you going to use?”
It’s great to nerd out about my hobby and not get weird looks when I mention IBUs, ABV, and “Oh, check out the attenuation on that yeast!”
I’ve recently gotten to try a Belgian rye, a honey porter, and a barleywine made by a contractor at the Department of Energy, a third-grade teacher, and a professional baker, respectively. It has started to feel a bit like Fight Club: we are all professional something-or-others who just barely maintain a day job in order to spend our nights engaging in the primitive ritual of creating alcohol from grain.
So here we are, me having broken the first rule of Homebrew Club. It’s only to proselytize the mission of Homebrew Club: get everyone to homebrew, or at least somebody everybody knows. Maybe I’ll meet you at a party someday and I’ll just say the password, and we’ll both be in the know. Flocculation.
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By Sam Chapple-Sokol
Sam Chapple-Sokol is a paralegal at the Department of Justice, but that’s just his day job. By night and weekend he loves to cook, eat, and brew his own beer.
A Vermonter at heart, his favorite breweries are Rock Art and Long Trail. He is currently brewing a Kolsch using homegrown hops. Wish him luck.
About The Humble Gourmand
The Humble Gourmand is published the first Friday of each month, edited by Alison L. McConnell, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and writer. It is designed to offer straightforward lessons and advice to aspiring cooks, oenophiles, and all other eaters and drinkers.
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enegiltgand
October 20 10:36 a.m. 1Hi there, my home page is http://www.google.com