Homebrew FAQ
How did I get this?
There’s only one place you can get homebrew. It’s a home. You can’t legally buy homebrew.
What, is this even legal?
Homebrew is 100% legal in the U.S. There are many places in the world that levy very dire consequences for brewing beer, but here Jimmy Carter passed a federal law in 1978 that legalized homebrewing. Of course some states had stricter regulations that made homebrewing illegal in those places, but over the years, every state in the union has passed laws that have made homebrewing legal almost everywhere in the U.S.
Ok, so it’s not illegal, but who is going to drink this stuff that’s made in a bathtub?
It’s possible to make homebrew in a bathtub, but it’s probably not the best way. Most homebrewers take great care to sanitize their equipment scrupulously. The fact is that cleanliness is paramount to making good beer and most homebrewers know this intimately.
Ya, but there’s brewers who don’t care right, I mean is this stuff even safe?
Homebrew is double safe. First, the PH of natural yeast fermentation (Saccharomyces Cerevisiae/Pastorianus) is low. Dangerous bacteria have a hard time staying alive in this acid environment. Second, beer has alcohol in it, which is very deadly to dangerous microbes. So while not every fermented food/drink is safe, if it smells like beer, it is. Even when beer goes bad, the microbe that can live in it is Acetobacter. Acetobacter is the enemy of good beer. It changes the alcohol in beer into vinegar. While vinegar is an unpleasant surprise in beer, everyone knows that it is safe to ingest. So yes, homebrew, unless its made with mayonnaise and clams, is absolutely safe. For the record the FAQs author’s homebrew is made from barley malt, water, yeast and hops, maybe a spice or two but no mayonnaise.
Well alright, I might like to try this, but is homebrew just like regular beer.
Yes, in most ways homebrew is indistinguishable from regular beer, except that it is often more delicious. Commercial breweries have to deal with issues like hundreds of gallons of pressure weighing on the yeast in fermenters as well as contaminants that can build up over time in hard to reach places. There are just so many things that can go wrong when you’re trying to make a thousand gallons of beer. Homebrewers just don’t have these problems because you can see and clean every nook and cranny of your equipment. Besides it is much harder for commercial breweries to put the love in their beer like a homebrewer.
I guess then you should just drink it like you would any other beer?
No, many homebrew beers get their fizz by fermenting a small amount of sugar in the bottle. There will likely be a thin layer of yeast on the bottom of the bottle. While the yeast does not have a strong flavor and isn’t bad for you, it is really not meant to be part of your drink. Pour the beer slowly from the bottle into a glass. Watch the liquid as it pours out from inside the bottle until you see dregs from the bottom beginning to flow out to your glass and stop pouring. You may lose an ounce of beer, but you’ll enjoy your beer just a little bit more. You can swish that last ounce around and down it like a shot. Yeast is high in vitamin D, which can help you avoid the worst symptoms of a hangover the next day. Good new is some yeasts will just stick to the bottom of the bottle and not even make it to your glass, but better safe than sorry, pour slowly, homebrew is worth the wait.
This beer is a little hazy. Did you mean to do that?
Many homebrews have a little haze in them from proteins that come from the barley that are floating around in the beer. Most brewers don’t think that the proteins have any real taste and so commercial breweries remove them with filters. Many homebrewers just don’t feel a need to filter their beers and some even feel that the haze adds character and even a nice flavor, but there’s no rule that homebrew be clear or hazy, so if it tastes good, enjoy it!
I’ve enjoyed my homebrew. Should I return the bottle?
Maybe, ask the homebrewer who shared her beer with you if she would like to have the bottle/s back. If they do, rinse out the bottle three times with tap water right after you pour the beer into your glass. The author of this FAQ drinks enough beer to keep enough bottles around for filling, so if I am sharing beer with you, don’t worry about getting the bottles back to me.
This stuff is effing delicious. Can I make my own beer?
You bet. Sign up to HomeBrewTalk.com for all the information you need to start homebrewing beer. You can make it as easy or complicated as you want. All you need to do is keep your equipment clean and sanitary and follow a process that has been done for millennia. Today we have all the tools we need to succeed every time we brew a batch of beer.
