American culture grows increasingly soulless and homogenized. The landscape edges ever closer to indistinguishable strip malls with the same shops on every block. There is one great beacon of hope for those of us who value a unique regional identity: beer.
Yes, beer, that frothy delicious liquid that's both one of life's pure, simple pleasures and, at times, like moonlight to a werewolf, the stuff that brings out our most embarrassing behavior.
A new chapter is opening in the story of beer, and those who are underage can take advantage of it - brewing your own beer.
UW-Madison students on campus are starting to pick up on this new trend.
Dave Mitchell, the owner of the Wine and Hop Shop, said he does see UW students coming in to his store looking for books and information about brewing, though most of them tend to be graduate students.
[We] give a lot of advice and spend a lot of time with new brewers helping them to select equipment, ingredients and recommending recipes,"" Mitchell said.
Alex Bilgri, a UW-Madison senior, is one of those students.
Part of a long family history of home brewing, Bilgri started brewing for himself about a year and a half ago.
""My dad did it about ten years ago, but it is a lot of work,"" Bilgri said. ""He liked it but he kind of fell out of the habit a while ago. I knew he had a lot of the basic starting equipment, and so I thought it might be interesting to try. So I borrowed his fermentors and things.""
Matt Michalak, a fourth-year nuclear engineering student at UW, started brewing with Bilgri in the summer of 2007.
""I enjoy brewing beer because the possibilities are pretty much endless,"" Michalak said. ""One can make any kind of beer exactly to the brewer's taste.""
Michalak said brewing can be quite time consuming but it is worth it.
""Not only for the end product, but because it is a good excuse to have some friends over and enjoy a beer and catch up while cooking up a batch,"" Michalak said. ""It is also fun to hear, 'You made this?!' or 'This is pretty good, what brewery did it come from?'""
Underage Drinking and Brewing
According to Wisconsin Act 337, effective Sept. 1, 1986, it states no one under the age of 21 may legally purchase, possess or consume alcohol-containing beverages except when accompanied by a parent, guardian or spouse of legal drinking age, and in certain other limited circumstances.
These limited circumstances include drinking in ""private clubs or establishments"" or in an individual's home, according to the Wisconsin Brief 95 - o3 from the Legislative Reference Bureau.
Mitchell said that his establishment does not have to ID anyone that buys from his store because they do not sell any alcoholic beverages, just the ingredients. Student brewers like Bilgri do not view the age discrepancy as a problem.
""In my honest opinion, it's like really more of a food,"" Bilgri said. ""I mean, I feel like at the point I'm in college and living by myself, if I want to have a beer with dinner, who's to say I shouldn't have a beer with it? I like beer - it's tasty. I like to have it with food sometimes.""
Imitation is flattery
What can be brewed is only limited by imagination, but certain types of beverages are difficult to imitate.
""My favorite beer is ... the hacker shore hefeweizen,"" said Bilgri, ""It's German. Hefeweizen is a particular style of wheat beer.""
Bilgri said he wishes he would be able to brew hefeweizen at home, but it's proving to be a little difficult.
""Brewing the hefeweizen is a little tricky sometimes,"" Bilgri said. ""At least half of the flavor of the beer is from the yeast. And so you need that yeast, and since it's coming from Germany, by the time it gets somewhere, there's only a little yeast in the bottom of the bottle, that you can sometimes
steal and culture.""
Culturing from a small amount is possible if the yeast is traveling a short distance, but when it is traveling for days over an ocean, the flavor is lost.
""I haven't been able to do it yet,"" Bilgri said.
Another limitation is the pH of water in a specific region. Certain areas in the world can only brew their own type of beer because of the water's pH.
""That's why certain areas will have the very light beers,"" Bilgri said. ""They can't [make light beer] in other places, [so] they'll have to have dark beers - like Ireland.""
Ireland brews dark beers like stouts and Guiness because the pH of the water in Ireland causes certain enzymes in the yeast to activate. The enzymes that are activated are not good for lighter beers.
""This problem has led to a lot of new developments and styles because the beer will filter through to this area,"" Bilgri said. ""People will say, 'Wow this is like really good stuff,' and we'll try to make it and ... can't do it.""
Brewers will experiment while trying to duplicate a beer and end up creating a new variety. For example, the much-loved Oktoberfest was created while trying to duplicate a pilsner from Turkey, Bilgri said.
The Brewing Process
According to Bilgri, people have been brewing beer for over three thousand years, so variation in production methods is common.
The basic process Bilgri uses begins with filling a large insolated container, usually a cooler, with crushed malted grain.
""Then you 'mash' - which is where you mix the grain and hot water into this kind of slurry,"" Bilgri said. ""The temperature depends on a lot of things,"" adding that depending on the temperature, different enzymes in the yeast are activated.
The next step is to drain the mixture slowly into a brew pot - Bilgri's four gallon pot fills 48 to 50 bottles - and boil.
""The foam will get really high, and you have to make sure it won't overflow,"" Bilgri said. ""It can get pretty messy if it does.""
After it reaches the boiling temperature, the wort turns cloudy and all the foam disappears; this is called the ""hop break.""
""The hop break is important for historical reasons.
This means it's at the boiling point and that you've sterilized the beer,"" Bilgri said. ""In the 1700s, when you couldn't drink the water, everyone drank beer and you knew it was clean,"" said Bilgri.
After the hop break, the first hops are added and boiled. Most of the aroma is lost at this point, so more hops are added.
After the second portion of hops is added, the beer has to cool very quickly; this is the ""cold break.""
""What my roommates and I used to do is fill a bath tub full of ice and just try to swish the pot around in it for a while. It would take like an hour and a half, and it was really annoying, and it didn't really work,"" Bilgri said. ""Now I have a bio-heat exchanger. It works great. It can cool five gallons in about four minutes.""
Once the beer is cooled, add the yeast. There will be a violent fermentation for an average of four or five days, after which the fermentation will die
down.
""Then I'll usually rack the beer, which is where you siphon the beer from one fermenter into a second one,"" said Bilgri. ""It'll just sit there for awhile.""
When the beer is sitting, it is aging. According to Bilgri, a general rule is the darker the beer, the longer it has to age.
""The oatmeal wheat I'm working on, I can turn that around in about a month,"" Bilgri said. ""But I did a stout, and that's still aging. I started in May. It'll be ready around Christmas.""
Once the beer is done aging, the bottling process starts.
""You have to add a little bit of sugar back into it so it carbonates,"" Bilgri said.
""Brewing ... it's a hobby,"" Bilgri said, adding that all it takes to start is a big pot, some extract and a little hops. ""You can get into it as much or as little as you want.""
