17755254:CL APRIL 2013(49)
3/25/2013
12:22 AM
Though Baker and his colleagues are clearly living the dream, for many, including Tony Simon, home brewing is about more than the possibility of a commercial enterprise. It’s about more, even, than the beer. It’s about learning. It’s about the process. It’s about getting together with friends, making a batch and sharing the end result. That’s why, as craft beer stores and microbreweries multiply faster than yeast spores, Simon still home brews. He, and many like him, enjoy the simplicity of brewing a batch as the sun sets on another week. The obvious next question is how. How do I get involved? How do I brew my own beer? How can find myself on a patio drinking beer with tomorrow’s craft beer wunderkinds? It’s simple. Just visit this generation’s version of the hardware store – your LHBS. “Find your LHBS, or local home brew store,” says Simon, who hosts a home brew podcast at 1beer1song.com. “Walk in and say I don’t know what I’m doing. They’ll walk you through it.” By all accounts, it’s that simple. The community is so user-friendly, so supportive, so collaborative that seasoned brewers understand even a newcomer bringing fresh ideas to the table could, if not revolutionize, then at least expedite the process. “Home brewing takes a lot of handholding,” says Simon. “You have to love it. It requires too much. It almost requires neurosis.”
Page 49
Right, co-owner Joel Iverson. Above, bottles on the assembly line.
April 2013 Cobb Life
49