Old School Brewing

[yourlastchance89]

For the more experienced brewers out there who have been around the game longer, how did home brewing used to go? This is coming from someone who started in January this year and has only 18 batches thus far? I'm talking about 20, 30, 40 years ago or more.

How did you get ingredients? Was it mostly extract? What kind of equipment was available? What information was prevalent and where did you get it? Was it recipe books, brew clubs, word of mouth, conferences, etc.? What was the competition scene like back then? And with home brewing or craft beer not being nearly as prevalent as now, what got you started into home brewing?

 

[V-Fib]

20, 30, 40 years? I'd be happy to know how they did it before the internet.

 

[Gadjobrinus]

That's quite a ways back. Not sure how much help this is, but you might look up material on Ken Grossman and Sierra Nevada since he started with his passion by opening up a homebrew shop sometime in the '70's. Then it went from there. Along with Fritz Maytag and Anchor Steam, quite a story.

 

[dsaavedra]

One of my former employers started homebrewing over 20 years ago (he is actually the one that inspired me to get into brewing ~4 years ago!). I still see him relatively often, I really should pick his brain about what it was like back then.

 

[Bosh]

Didn't brew a long time ago but my father brewed in the early 80's/late 70's and I read his (hilariously awful) brewing guide. From what I gather things were a lot less exact (as in recipes that called for "ale yeast" and "hops" without specifying anything further), people mostly used extract, my father served beer out of these cheapo plastic kegs that your had to prime, my father believed that you had to keep primary times to an absolute minimum as the yeast trub turned "poisonous," he had no real temp control system besides "basement," a lot of people used "kit and kilo" recipes (as in a big can of LME and a kilo of sugar), and his beers tasted much worse than mine do (if my mom is an unbiased witness).

IIRC the way my father did it was to primary for a few days in a bucket and then transfer it to a serving plastic keg-ish thingie pretty much as soon as it hit FG, then waited for it to carb up, then served it when it had carbed.

He also one lied and told my mother he had made an alcohol-free stout because he "didn't add the thing that caused the alcohol" I don't know how my mom fell for that.

 

[atoughram]

My first batch was prior to 1993 (My grandparents were alive and I remember my grandfather having a few bottles of homebrew with me.) - I don't remember exactly, probably 91 or 92.

It was a can of Coopers Pale, a couple of pounds of DME to bring up the OG, and some some packet of yeast - Coopers Ale maybe. I boiled only about 2.5 gallons in a porcelain steel canner (That I still have!) and put it in a bucket and added water to bring it to 5 gallons and cool it off. I sanitized everything with bleach, didn't take any notes, didn't have a thermometer, of a ph meter, or add hops, or grain or nothing. I bought the kit from a now out of business brew shop in Tacoma called "The Little Brown Jug". I bottled it all and savored everyone of them. My next few batches were DME extract with boil hops and steeped specialty grains - Five gallon batches, I don't remember the yeast used - probably Coopers Ale. Then in the late 90's I went all grain with an igloo cooler mash tun, Zapap lauter tun, and a keggle! Built my first RIMS in 2002.

 

[greyghost]

If I didn't know better Russ I would think you were a old man like me.

 

[foam_top]

Some of the veterans (like Palmer) reminisce ordering through magazines, just like many things before internet. The monthly/weekly catalog would come in the mail and you would send back the order slip with product codes and a check.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Big obnoxious cans of super thick extract. Pretty much Muntons or Coopers (google them up for some nostalgia). You had a few choices like dark, medium, light and extra light. You had to heat the thing up in a water bath to get it to pour. Some were already hopped. Boil in whatever pot you had with water. Toss in some yeast (bigger catalogs had maybe 4 options for yeast). Some cans of extract had a little pack of dry yeasts taped to the lid. Most people i knew used 5 gallon Sparklets water bottles (they were all glass back then) for fermenting, covered with a piece of plastic and a rubber band. If you were really cool with your sparklets water service guy, he would leave a bottle with you for a few weeks and still give you your refill. This might cost you a bottle of your latest creation.

Bottle caps, capping tools and ceramic/wire top bottles could be had from Midwest farming or canning type catalogs. We cleaned the bottles the same way we would clean mason jars for canning... In a large enamel pan and steamed them. Selection of anything was minimal. Going way back we never heard of a hydrometer. No concept of gravity or correct temperatures. If you followed the directions on the can you should be pretty close to what was intended. And most of the time, the beer turned out just fine

Back on the Nebraska farm growing up when it was first legalized (1978 I think), there was no internet of course. We had seed catalogs, the sears catalog and ads in the back of magazines, for sourcing things we needed. Put a check in an envelope and a couple few weeks later your stuff was on your door.

The real treat for the kids back then is when dad ordered a Hires Root Beer kit with his beer making stuff. Pungent and potent, loaded with common sugar, and quite tasty. Another treat was when there was a little unhoped extract that mom would mix with some ice cream and whole milk in a blender. Nothing better than a home made malt! Sometimes i'll grab a small bag of DME from the local shop and mix some up for the family.

Fast forward to the late 80's and some grains were showing up at hardware and liquor stores. Basic equipment and tools started really showing up now. Articles in magazines like popular mechanics gave some new ideas and concepts for the home brewer.

Then low and behold, years later, Charlie Papazian writes a book. A guy and his girl, complete with big hair and bell bottoms. Hilarious reading to this day.

Since then, it's gone nuts

 

[yourlastchance89]

Big obnoxious cans of super thick extract. Pretty much Muntons or Coopers (google them up for some nostalgia). You had a few choices like dark, medium, light and extra light. You had to heat the thing up in a water bath to get it to pour. Some were already hopped. Boil in whatever pot you had with water. Toss in some yeast (bigger catalogs had maybe 4 options for yeast). Some cans of extract had a little pack of dry yeasts taped to the lid. Most people i knew used 5 gallon Sparklets water bottles (they were all glass back then) for fermenting, covered with a piece of plastic and a rubber band. If you were really cool with your sparklets water service guy, he would leave a bottle with you for a few weeks and still give you your refill. This might cost you a bottle of your latest creation.

Bottle caps, capping tools and ceramic/wire top bottles could be had from Midwest farming or canning type catalogs. We cleaned the bottles the same way we would clean mason jars for canning... In a large enamel pan and steamed them. Selection of anything was minimal. Going way back we never heard of a hydrometer. No concept of gravity or correct temperatures. If you followed the directions on the can you should be pretty close to what was intended. And most of the time, the beer turned out just fine

Back on the Nebraska farm growing up when it was first legalized (1978 I think), there was no internet of course. We had seed catalogs, the sears catalog and ads in the back of magazines, for sourcing things we needed. Put a check in an envelope and a couple few weeks later your stuff was on your door.

The real treat for the kids back then is when dad ordered a Hires Root Beer kit with his beer making stuff. Pungent and potent, loaded with common sugar, and quite tasty. Another treat was when there was a little unhoped extract that mom would mix with some ice cream and whole milk in a blender. Nothing better than a home made malt! Sometimes i'll grab a small bag of DME from the local shop and mix some up for the family.

Fast forward to the late 80's and some grains were showing up at hardware and liquor stores. Basic equipment and tools started really showing up now. Articles in magazines like popular mechanics gave some new ideas and concepts for the home brewer.

Then low and behold, years later, Charlie Papazian writes a book. A guy and his girl, complete with big hair and bell bottoms. Hilarious reading to this day.

Since then, it's gone nuts

Wow that's incredible! Speaking of Charlie here is video of him discussing some of the various pioneers of homebrewing. Really neat stuff to see how far the craft has evolved in such a short span of time

 

[Rob2010SS]

He also one lied and told my mother he had made an alcohol-free stout because he "didn't add the thing that caused the alcohol" I don't know how my mom fell for that.

This ^ is hilarious!!!!

 

[GrogNerd]

Mid '93 I saw an article in Details magazine about homebrewing and thought it was just the coolest thing ever (still do) & then saw a brewing supply catalog in a catalog of catalogs (ANYTHING to occupy your time underway in the navy)

When I got out, found a LHBS & started brewing

Most recipes came from Papazian, others from the LHBS. Then BBS boards, AOL & a DOS program called SUDS.

Still have that Details article AND that first catalog

 

[bilder]

Had to go to the local library and have them get the single book on the subject (thanks Charlie!) transferred from a couple towns over.

Then I had to listen to all my friends tell me I would go blind or worse if I attempted to make my own beer.

Ahh, those were the days....

 

[brick_haus]

A friend and me brewed our first batch of ale in 1978. Right after our wine making skills were deemed hopeless.
I bought my ingredients at the exact same place I buy them now, The Home Beer Wine Cheese shop in Reseda.
We made do with whatever equipment that we could scrounge up or make.
Oh the memories...

 

[shelly_belly]

Mostly this for me in the early 80s. Widely available in grocery stores. It came with a packet of yeast and instructions to make 5 gallons. It was less than $3 and I still see it on the shelves today.

 

[skidmark]

Big obnoxious cans of super thick extract. Pretty much Muntons or Coopers (google them up for some nostalgia).

Big, bulging obnoxious cans of super thick extract.

Fixed that for you.

 

[SoCal-Doug]

Thanks That too!

 

[z-bob]

Blue Ribbon or Premier malt extract (same thing, the name changed at some point) but they used to be 3 pound cans instead of 2.2 lb.

 

[Bosh]

This ^ is hilarious!!!!

I guessed my father brewed an old-style kit and kilo and didn't add in the kilo. But, nope, it was normal 5%ish beer he just lied and my mom believed that even after drinking some and having a stupidly low alcohol tolerance. My mom is incredibly gullible...

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I brewed back in the early 90's. I still have a labeled bottle of "Duncan's Pale Ale" with a hilarious write up on the back. I should post it here some time.

I brewed extract using LME. We had a local homebrew shop (benefits of a college town perhaps?). I started with recipes from Papazian's book, then got "adventurous" and did some recipes that the HBS guy had in his monthy flyer. I don't remember going beyond "ale yeast" vs "lager yeast"...no idea what I was using. It was dry yeast and I pitched it directly into the wort.

I think the store had a few kinds of hops, all pellet. I remember thinking that it would be the ultimate to get whole cone hops and I used to look for them in the store.

Fermented in a bucket, sanitized with a diluted bleach solution which I then rinsed off with tap water. I used 5 gallon jugs of water from the store that, in retrospect, I assume were RO. Towards the end I "graduated" to using a secondary and I thought I was doing some pretty advanced brewing.

I fermented much longer then...usually 4-5 weeks before bottling, then another 2-3 before drinking.

Honestly, other that the wealth of information from the net, it was pretty similar to what we all do now. I didn't know anyone else who brewed and all grain seemed like voodoo magic to me.

I had some good batches. The Duncan's Pale Ale and an anchor steam clone (Anchor Steam was my favorite non-import) that was really good. I gave it up because I had kids and brewing alone kinda sucked.