Today's Homebrewing Community
Failure led Pittsburgh's Malcolm Frazer to seek perfection in the homebrewing world. Frazer started brewing in 1997 while stationed with the Navy in South Carolina, at his roommate's urging. "He was on the porch brewing and shouted up, in this thick Maine accent, 'Hey, Malcolm, come down. We're gonna make beer. You like beer.' " Not that batch. It was, in a word, atrocious. "Having made that very, very bad beer, I wanted to make a good beer."
Frazer, who later served on a nuclear submarine, started making beer for his Navy roommates, who helped him buy equipment. "I brewed what they wanted," says Frazer. He made IPAs and a Boston Lager clone, plus plenty of strong beers. "We were Navy guys and a little thin on the wallet," he recalls. Post-Navy, he moved to western Pennsylvania to work in the nuclear field. He joined local homebrew club TRASH—Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers—and subjected himself to serious feedback. "They didn't just pile on to be jerks," he says. "They piled on because I belonged to a club that was very, very detail-oriented."
Torn to his foundation, Frazer started rebuilding his hobby, merging his process-oriented, science-driven military background with an artistic touch—theater and drawing were high school pastimes. He methodically attempted to master every beer style. "As soon as I did well with those in competitions, like gold, I would move on to something else," he says.
Competition brewing requires commitment and free time. After Frazer married and had three young children, squeezing in a brew was tougher than juicing a months-old lime. He began brewing after his kids went to bed, sessions lasting till 1 or 2 a.m. "I'd come home, do the family thing and brew at night," he says.
To save time, he started weighing ingredients and prepping equipment on a Friday or Saturday night, then he set a pre-dawn timer for the electric heater. Frazer would wake up and make coffee, chased by beer. "I loved brewing so much it was worth it," he says. He also started sharing his passion with his kids. His son and daughters help him weigh grains, a sneaky method of teaching numbers and demystifying brewing. "They eat grains and smell hops," he says. "I like to have that natural, not-in-your-face learning."
Homebrew enough beer, serve it to enough friends and family, and chances are you'll eventually hear this phrase: "You should go pro." Opening a brewery is a dream achieved to some. But to others, it's a dream best left deferred.
PicoBrew's Johnson might've been able to parlay her 2013 win into a brewery in the Bay Area, her home at the time. Instead, the California State legislature IT specialist read about PicoBrew and dropped the company a line. Originally, PicoBrew wanted to buy her recipes, which she found funny. "They're all free on the internet," Johnson says. "Homebrewers, we always share. We don't charge."
Instead, she joined the PicoBrew team, becoming the seventh employee. Now in Seattle, she also began working at Bluebird, an ice cream shop and brewery. Johnson spent about a year on the two-barrel system, the manual labor and heavy lifting more than she could handle. "I'm 52 now and I'm feeling it," Johnson says. She later adds of PicoBrew, "On this level, I get to do what I still love to do—brew at home—and brew at work."
Nashville's Chris Allen also has no intent to take the next step. After all, his amateur rig is as tricked out as a professional brewery. The technology director for a private school and coach of the robotics team, Allen has transformed half his home garage, built into a hill, into Ones & Zeros Brewing, a gleaming temple to the intersection of automation and fermentation. It contains glass-door refrigerators converted into fermentation chambers that maintain temperatures as precisely as Swiss watches. "I can hold temperature inside of the thermal well within a tenth of a degree, and ramp up or ramp down," he says.
Over the years, he's garnered enough gold medals at homebrew competitions to fill Fort Knox's coffers, and he was named both the Mid-South and Tennessee homebrewer of the year in 2016 and 2017. His brewing repertoire ranges from a gose to wee heavy and raspberry lambic, each one a paradigmatic example. "I'm a total perfectionist. The beer has to be perfect to me. Competing is just a way to verify that I'm brewing to a classic style," he says.
"So many of my friends are like, 'When are you going to open your new brewery?' Not tomorrow," Allen says. For now, he's content to share his beers with friends and his local homebrew club, fine-tuning his garage operation. "I'm trying to invent new ways to push the scope of homebrewing," he says.
In an earlier age, homebrewing was all about filling beer's blank spots with flavor, creating alternatives where none existed. Nowadays, brewing is in many ways more personal, powered by a propulsive thrust of ingenuity, community and meticulousness, trying to match—and maybe best—the beers available at your local store.
The surge of homebrewers going pro, however, hasn't come without its cost. Retail sales have declined at homebrew supply shops, says AHA's Glass, and older shops have been particularly hard hit. The story isn't as simple as homebrewers shifting to online purchases. "Newly opened brick-and-mortar stores are outgrowing online retailers," he says, adding that there's big growth with over-60 brewers. Stats are great for proving points, but sometimes there's a simpler explanation. "People think that homebrewing is fun," Glass says. "If people didn't think it was fun, they wouldn't do it."
Frazer, who later served on a nuclear submarine, started making beer for his Navy roommates, who helped him buy equipment. "I brewed what they wanted," says Frazer. He made IPAs and a Boston Lager clone, plus plenty of strong beers. "We were Navy guys and a little thin on the wallet," he recalls. Post-Navy, he moved to western Pennsylvania to work in the nuclear field. He joined local homebrew club TRASH—Three Rivers Alliance of Serious Homebrewers—and subjected himself to serious feedback. "They didn't just pile on to be jerks," he says. "They piled on because I belonged to a club that was very, very detail-oriented."
Torn to his foundation, Frazer started rebuilding his hobby, merging his process-oriented, science-driven military background with an artistic touch—theater and drawing were high school pastimes. He methodically attempted to master every beer style. "As soon as I did well with those in competitions, like gold, I would move on to something else," he says.
Competition brewing requires commitment and free time. After Frazer married and had three young children, squeezing in a brew was tougher than juicing a months-old lime. He began brewing after his kids went to bed, sessions lasting till 1 or 2 a.m. "I'd come home, do the family thing and brew at night," he says.
To save time, he started weighing ingredients and prepping equipment on a Friday or Saturday night, then he set a pre-dawn timer for the electric heater. Frazer would wake up and make coffee, chased by beer. "I loved brewing so much it was worth it," he says. He also started sharing his passion with his kids. His son and daughters help him weigh grains, a sneaky method of teaching numbers and demystifying brewing. "They eat grains and smell hops," he says. "I like to have that natural, not-in-your-face learning."
Homebrew enough beer, serve it to enough friends and family, and chances are you'll eventually hear this phrase: "You should go pro." Opening a brewery is a dream achieved to some. But to others, it's a dream best left deferred.
PicoBrew's Johnson might've been able to parlay her 2013 win into a brewery in the Bay Area, her home at the time. Instead, the California State legislature IT specialist read about PicoBrew and dropped the company a line. Originally, PicoBrew wanted to buy her recipes, which she found funny. "They're all free on the internet," Johnson says. "Homebrewers, we always share. We don't charge."
Instead, she joined the PicoBrew team, becoming the seventh employee. Now in Seattle, she also began working at Bluebird, an ice cream shop and brewery. Johnson spent about a year on the two-barrel system, the manual labor and heavy lifting more than she could handle. "I'm 52 now and I'm feeling it," Johnson says. She later adds of PicoBrew, "On this level, I get to do what I still love to do—brew at home—and brew at work."
Nashville's Chris Allen also has no intent to take the next step. After all, his amateur rig is as tricked out as a professional brewery. The technology director for a private school and coach of the robotics team, Allen has transformed half his home garage, built into a hill, into Ones & Zeros Brewing, a gleaming temple to the intersection of automation and fermentation. It contains glass-door refrigerators converted into fermentation chambers that maintain temperatures as precisely as Swiss watches. "I can hold temperature inside of the thermal well within a tenth of a degree, and ramp up or ramp down," he says.
Over the years, he's garnered enough gold medals at homebrew competitions to fill Fort Knox's coffers, and he was named both the Mid-South and Tennessee homebrewer of the year in 2016 and 2017. His brewing repertoire ranges from a gose to wee heavy and raspberry lambic, each one a paradigmatic example. "I'm a total perfectionist. The beer has to be perfect to me. Competing is just a way to verify that I'm brewing to a classic style," he says.
"So many of my friends are like, 'When are you going to open your new brewery?' Not tomorrow," Allen says. For now, he's content to share his beers with friends and his local homebrew club, fine-tuning his garage operation. "I'm trying to invent new ways to push the scope of homebrewing," he says.
In an earlier age, homebrewing was all about filling beer's blank spots with flavor, creating alternatives where none existed. Nowadays, brewing is in many ways more personal, powered by a propulsive thrust of ingenuity, community and meticulousness, trying to match—and maybe best—the beers available at your local store.
The surge of homebrewers going pro, however, hasn't come without its cost. Retail sales have declined at homebrew supply shops, says AHA's Glass, and older shops have been particularly hard hit. The story isn't as simple as homebrewers shifting to online purchases. "Newly opened brick-and-mortar stores are outgrowing online retailers," he says, adding that there's big growth with over-60 brewers. Stats are great for proving points, but sometimes there's a simpler explanation. "People think that homebrewing is fun," Glass says. "If people didn't think it was fun, they wouldn't do it."