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Students tap into beer brewing industry |
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Tuesday, 01 April 2008 |
 Camden S. Bouchard brews his own beer using the equipment including a brew pot, fermenter, ale pail, bottling bucket and wart killer. Photo by Derek DeSha
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by LINDSAY CRAVEN
Lifestyles Reporter
Ever since the colonists arrived on what would become American soil, beer has been a huge part of our culture.
Virginia colonists began brewing beer in 1587, according to beerhistory.com.
Today, North Carolinians consume an average of 22 gallons of beer annually per person, according to Time magazine’s “One Day in America” series.
Some Appalachian State University students are so dedicated to their
love of carbonated alcohol they have taken up brewing from their own
homes.
“I’ve always had an interest in beer,” Camden S. Bouchard, a senior
advertising major, said. “Even when I couldn’t drink beer I thought it
was cool. What’s cooler than making your own beer?”
Bouchard’s parents bought him a home brewing start kit as a birthday present.
Since then, Bouchard has been brewing from his home and giving his home
brewed concoctions to friends and family as party favors and gifts.
However, he doesn’t plan to make a career out of his hobby.
“Money is not a reason to brew beer,” Bouchard said. “I plan on brewing
beer for my whole life. I don’t want it to be how I make my money. I
want to make money and then open up my own brewery.”
Marcus E. Taylor, a senior appropriate technology major, also brews from home.
 Ale pail used for priming sugar, which makes sure the bottles are all carbonated the same. Photo by Derek DeSha
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“I initially got interested in brewing beer because it seemed like
there were so many different varieties and so many different things
that you could do with it and I just wanted to experiment with it, and
have different flavors that I made,” Taylor said.
Taylor has tinkered with a couple of different types of beer ranging from ales to lagers and has even created an organic beer.
He also grows his own hops at the Edible Schoolyard at the Living Learning Center and builds hops trellises.
 Fermenter. Photo by Derek DeSha
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Bouchard tends to recreate the types of beer he usually likes to purchase.
“My favorite beer to drink is IPAs so most of the time that’s the type
of beer I’m going to make,” Bouchard said. “I’ve made light beers,
wheat beers, stouts, IPAs, pale ales and pilsners.”
Bouchard also names his beers. Some past names have included the “Panty
Dropper Pilsner,” the “Swadoople IPA,” “Frankenstein,” and “Black Out
Stout.”
The process for brewing beer is a long one.
Once the appropriate tools are purchased and the process begins, it
will take approximately a month and a half to two months to have a
drinkable product.
“It starts with a pot and you boil a wart,” Bouchard said. “You start
with water and then you add in malt and hops and boil it anywhere from
30 minutes to two hours, depending on what kind of beer you’re making.”
“Next you get the sugars to help get the bacteria to grow. You hit it
with yeast after you’re done boiling and it gets down to about 70
degrees and put it in a carboy, which is a fermentation device,”
Bouchard said. “You leave it in there for about a month and let the
yeast work on the sugars and then you have to bottle the beer.
“It has to sit in the bottle for another two to three weeks to carbonate, and after about six weeks you have drinkable beer.”
The price range for making your own beer all depends upon the type of beer that you wish to brew, Bouchard said.
“You can make 50 bottles of beer for as cheap as $20 or you can make 50
bottles of beer for $100 - it just depends on what kind of beer you
want to make,” Bouchard said. “Usually it ends up being a little
cheaper than the store. It’s probably about half the price.”
The alcohol content varies as well, based on the person brewing the beer.
“I’ve made beers with 4 percent alcohol in them and I’ve made beers
with 15 percent alcohol in them,” Bouchard said. “You can make a beer
as stout as you want to make it.”
Taylor prefers to utilize a trial and error method.
“There’s this device called a hydrometer that you use to measure the
gravity of [alcohol content] but I don’t really like using hydrometers
because they’re not terribly trustworthy,” Taylor said. “I prefer to
just drink beer and see how drunk it gets me and how many beers and
just kind of gauge off that.”
There are laws associated with brewing from home.
“The only law that I know of is that you can’t produce more than 200
gallons a year,” Bouchard said. “You can’t sell it. It’s like moonshine
- you can make moonshine but you can’t sell moonshine.”
Bouchard said the sanitary conditions of brewing are important to consider.
“The biggest rule in home brewing is you have to keep everything clean
because what you’re doing when you’re brewing is allowing bacteria to
grow and you don’t want to have any bacteria growing that are not the
bacteria you planned on having grow,” Bouchard said.
Both Bouchard and Taylor plan to take home brewing along with them in the future.
“It’s just something I think that’s growing,” Bouchard said. “People
are finding out that it’s easy to make good beer and it’s fun.”
“I definitely plan to continue home brewing,” Taylor said. “It’s
definitely enjoyable. There are so many different combinations that
it’s limitless.”
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