Seems like everyone’s a brewer these days
made with honey harvested from a hive on the South Lawn. Brew Camp (2039 W. Belle Plaine, 773-857-2400, www.brew
also sells recipe kits for both beers at its Chicago store, and online.
George Washington made beer in Mount Vernon and my grandfather made it in Joliet, but they both lived in an era when people made a lot of things at home.
With his velvety-voiced radio pitches, Jim Koch, brewer of Sam Adams, may have inspired countless homebrewers and bought the practice into modern times and to the masses. He was very visibly on the leading edge of a new idea. The idea is no longer new, obviously, and maybe we are returning in some sense to that “homemade” era.
Brew Camp is not the only beer supply store out there. There are beer supply stores everywhere, offering not only equipment and ingredients but also instruction, from very basic to advanced. You could try one of those or step it up and enroll at the Yale of brewing, the Siebel Institute of Technology, which celebrates its 140th anniversary this year. Siebel counts among its alumni August Busch III (of Anheuser Busch) and Greg Hall, the former Goose Island brewmaster who is now making Virtue Red Streak cider.
I have tasted lots of homebrews through the years — from the early days when only certain kinds of people were making it, to now, when everyone is — and some of those beers have made me wince while others were good enough to be served in a craft beer bar.
In late August I found myself sitting on a sailboat in DuSable Harbor. White masts reached toward the sky in front of dark twinkly high rises, and a friend of mine popped two bottles of his homebrew. They were very tasty, and made that evening setting close to idyllic. It is cool to be a holdout but it also is cool to be able to say, “Hey, do you want to try some beer that I made?”
Now beer is being made in one of the most famous house kitchens in the world. I am guessing that the First Beer will not be the last at the White House. Someday there might even be a boiling kettle of wort in my kitchen, just so I can see what all the fuss is about.
Michael Austin is a Chicago free-lance writer. E-mail thepourman@suntimes.com.