Pour Me a Cold One

Kevin Coolidge

So bone-tingling cold, it hurts my teeth. I don’t care. Nothing says summer like an ice-cold beer. Beer is simple. You don’t sniff it. You don’t slosh it around. You don’t hold it up to the light. There’s no need to talk about it. You drink it, and if you feel like it, you drink another. I like beer.

I appreciate a good homebrew beer, which is why I was happy to see that the Tioga County Fair is adding homemade beer and wine to their competitions this year. Best homebrew in show will win $200 cash and will have their beer professionally brewed and put on tap at the Wellsboro House Brewery. If you’ve been told you make the best beer, now is the time to demonstrate your skill.

If you’ve always wanted to brew your own beer, but don’t know where to start, there’s Homebrewing for Dummies by Marty Nachel. Marty is an award-winning homebrewer, a certified beer judge, and has been a beer evaluator at the Beverage Testing Institute and the Great American Beer Festival. He knows and loves beer, and can take you from a simple first batch to the more advanced procedures.

Having the right equipment for brewing your beer is essential, but the items needed at the beginner level are relatively inexpensive. You really only need three tools: a brewpot, a container in which you ferment the beer (the fermenter), and bottles to package the beer.

It sounds simple, but it can get complicated quickly. The fermenter must be airtight, but be able to vent carbon dioxide. The bottles require a bottle cap, which is going to require a bottle-capping device, and your list of needs begins to grow, but don’t panic.

You can set your own level of commitment and pace. Some equipment is required only to produce the more advanced beer styles. Some equipment is for saving time and effort in the process. You’ll probably want it if you continue to brew beer, but you may not need it when you begin.

There are four basic building blocks that make beer—barley, hops, yeast, and water. There’s a chapter devoted to each of these primary ingredients. There are also chapter to discuss miscellaneous additives and flavoring that aren’t the primary ingredients in beer—such as herbs and spices.

You can now begin to brew your first batch with step-by-step procedures from filling your brewpot to illustrating the options you have to package your brew once it’s done fermenting. Bottling beer before it is done fermenting may result in exploding bottles. Make sure to read chapter 13 thoroughly to avoid this nasty mishap.

There’s information on kegging your beer if you wish to avoid cleaning, storing, sanitizing and capping bottles, and of course the fun part of the book—the recipes. Marty over 100 picked for their popularity, usability and great taste. There’s even information on specialty beers, cider and mead. Experiment and enjoy.

Homebrewing is a lot like growing your own vegetables, or baking your own bread. There are few things as gratifying as sipping a cold one you brewed yourself, and sharing with friends and family. Beer has been bringing people together since civilization began, and nothing says fellowship like an ice-cold beer, except maybe two…

Beer is best? Wine is fine? Or maybe a little ‘shine? Drop me email at from_my_shelf@yahoo.com and let me know. Miss a past column? You can tap past columns at http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com Hobo used to be a country cat, but he prefers his livestock medium well... You can read about his adventures in “Hobo Finds A Home”, a children’s book about a kitten who didn’t want to be stepped on by clumsy cows…


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