Michael Agnew - Craft Beer for the Homebrewer

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Ask any professional brewers how they got their start and you are likely to hear the words, Well, I started homebrewing. Indeed, homebrewing is the source from which the current U.S. beer culture has sprung. Americas first microbrewery, New Albion Brewing Company, in Sonoma, California, was founded in 1976 by Jack McAuliffe, a homebrewer. Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada and Jim Koch of Sam Adams both started as homebrewers. Today, homebrewers remain a vital force in the industry, providing inspiration, audience, and a deep well of new talent.

The industry hasnt forgotten its roots. Individual brewers and the breweries where they work regularly and generously give back to the homebrewing community. They open their facilities for club meetings and competitions. Many are willing to make field calls from questioning homebrewers seeking troubleshooting advice or tips to help them make better beer. Some breweries reward homebrewers with the opportunity to brew their medal-winning beers on a commercial scale and then offer them for sale in the taproom or pub. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this is the ProAm Competition at the annual Great American Beer Festival, where professional brewers collaborate with award-winning homebrewers and enter the resulting beers in a special category at what is one of the worlds largest brewing competitions.

This book is a manifestation of that desire to give back. It is also a testament to the high degree of openness and camaraderie that exists in the industry. Cooperation between competitors is rare in the business world, but it is the norm among Americas small brewers. Exchanging information, insights, and even raw materials is commonplace. Collaborative brews are a growing trend, and what more obvious sign of this openness could you find than the willingness to allow recipes to be published in a book for national distribution? The beers produced are each brewerys lifeblood. Yet here they are, described in detail for use by homebrewers everywhere. What other industry does that? Youll never see Coca-Cola or PepsiCo releasing their formulas to the public.

Perhaps this says something about the nature of beer. Beer is and always has been a catalyst for social connection. In his great book, Uncorking the Past, archaeologist Patrick McGovern lays out evidence showing that beer was a central part of the social and ritual life of many ancient cultures. Cultivating barley for brewing may have been one spark that led to the development of settled, agrarian civilizations. In more modern times we have the well-established tradition of going round the pub for a pint (or three) with friends. And every homebrewer knows that an important part of each brewing session is gathering friends around the kettle to watch liquid boil while enjoying some homemade brew. Everywhere you look, beer brings people together.

Its a great time to be a homebrewer. The hobby is exploding. In May 2013 Alabama became the last state to legalize homebrewing. That same month, the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) listed 1,485 clubs, more than double the number from 2008. Nearly 3,400 people attended the 2012 National Homebrewers Conference, compared to 950 in 2008. The 2012 National Homebrew Competition registered 8,000 entries.

These are boom times for commercial brewers as well. According to the AHA, there were 2,416 breweries operating in the United States in March 2013, the most since the late nineteenth century. The AHA lists nearly 1,300 more breweries in planning. Craft beer production volume and sales have increased by double-digit percentages every year since 2010, bringing the craft sector to more than 6 percent of the total U.S. beer market. The vibrant creativity of American brewers has started to infect the rest of the world.

Its hard to talk about writing a book like this. We didnt create the recipes. That credit belongs to the brewers who applied their skills and expertise to craft the beers we love to drink and would like to brew. We did adjust some recipes, though, to ensure that they fit our standardization specifications. Those specifications provide an important baseline. Every brewers system and process produces different results. Some will extract more sugar from the grains. Others deliver better utilization of the bitter alpha acids in hops. This variation makes it essential to know the basic assumptions on which a recipe is built. To get the best results from this book, use the standardized recipes as a starting point and then tweak them to fit your own system, process, and ingredients.