Hops To It!Hops To It!

The "fad" of microbrewed beers is over, and it has become harder to find the types of serious beer you like: India Pale Ale, porter, dunkelweisen. Why not brew your own?

Home-brewing beer is a laid-back hobby, with a forgiving process. You create a top-quality consumable product that tastes just the way you want. Brewing is particularly appealing to technology enthusiasts-it combines a techie's attention to detail with the creativity of individual craftsmanship.

What's involved? Grain, hops, water, and yeast; a large stockpot, a big glass jug, and a bunch of beer bottles. There's not much else-at least not at the start.

The complexity of combining the ingredients is up to you. As in home cooking, which can be as simple as an add-a-pound-of-ground-beef boxed mix or as elaborate as hand-grinding imported spices, the beer-brewing process is entirely in your hands.

Most beginners start with extract kits, which make brewing as easy as pouring a can of malt extract into a stewpot of boiling water, adding yeast at the right time, and waiting a few weeks before bottling the results. (OK, I'm oversimplifying, but that's still a good summary.) That will brew a fine beer, and it's certainly a convenient way to begin, especially for the uncertainly committed.

Before long, you're likely to find yourself interested in adding adjuncts (usually specialty grains), and you might graduate to all-grain brewing. You might want to brew lagers rather than ales (lager brewing requires refrigeration) or make mead (honey brewed into an alcoholic beverage) or wine.

Home-brewing equipment is simple and inexpensive. You'll probably want to acquire the tools at a home-brew supplier, as many of the pieces (such as a beer hydrometer, to help measure the alcohol content of your beer) aren't found at the hardware store. Most home-brew suppliers sell starter kits, and they often have brewing demonstrations and sound advice. That's also where you'll find a wide variety of hops (cone-shaped flowers, used for aroma, bitterness, and preservation), beer yeast, malted grains, and cans of malt extract.

No matter which method you use, though, home brewing is good for what ales you.

Esther Schindler is site editor at information.com, and her back porch has been taken over by all-grain brewing equipment. Her husband's porter was runner-up in the Great Arizona Beer Festival two years running, and she's especially fond of his Asteroid's Honey Ale.