A typical Friday night for many KU students begins with a trip to the liquor store, though some students and faculty have taken drinking into their own hands. Malcolm Gibson, professor of journalism and self-confessed “beer snob,” started brewing by accident when his son-in-law gave him a home-brewing kit. “I make darker brews that are pretty hoppy,” Gibson says. “My next batch will be a nut brown ale.”

Adam Bowman, Lawrence graduate student, began brewing by buying his father a home-brewing kit for Christmas. “I got it for him and then sort of took it away from him,” Bowman says. After commandeering the brewing kit Bowman began brewing his own beer. When it comes to a favorite brew, Bowman says he’s always experimenting. “I change it every time. It may not come out tasting exactly like, say, a pale ale should taste, but it always comes out tasty and drinkable,” Bowman says.

Home brewing is a popular hobby and a great way to broaden your palate to the many different styles of beer. If you can’t seem to find a beer that you like at the store, trying making it yourself.

Ingredients

The basic building blocks of beer are water, malted barley, hops and yeast. The factors that determine the style of beer are the type and amount of malt being used, the amount and method used when adding the hops, and the strain of yeast used to ferment the beer.

Malting is the process by which enzymes and sugars, such as maltose, are extracted from barley or other grains. Hops are the female flower cones of hop plants. Their role in the beer-making process is to add flavor. Brewer’s yeast is a fungus. The yeast cells take in simple sugars and produce carbon dioxide and alcohol as waste products. Next time you drink too much, attribute your bad decisions to too much yeast poo.

The brewing process

The basic brewing process consists of soaking malted barley in hot water to release the malt sugars. This malt sugar solution is then boiled with hops. The unfermented mixture is called the wort, pronounced “wert.” The wort is allowed to cool, and then yeast is added to begin the fermentation process. Yeast, being the ravenous little critters they are, quickly consume the sugars. The by-product of their feasting makes people think it’s a good idea to put lamp shades on their heads.

Equipment

The equipment needed to brew beer at home is surprisingly simple. For the brewing, the basic piece of equipment is a boiling pot. Large canning pots work well, too. The fermenter can be as simple as a 5-gallon plastic bucket. Simple home-brewing kits with everything you need to get your brew on start at $40.

Sounds easy, right?

If only it were that simple. The fact that you like drinking beer does not make you a ready-made brewer. Brewing is equal parts art and science. “At each step there are places you can screw up,” says John Palmer, author of How to Brew: Everything You Need To Know To Brew Beer Right The First Time. Palmer has been brewing is own beer for 18 years. He started home brewing after moving from Michigan to California and finding the local beer selection to be lacking. “I came out to California and everything was Corona. That wasn’t the beer I wanted to drink, so I started brewing my own,” Palmer says.

There are more than 80 styles of beer. Many great beers can be made at home, though two in particular are especially challenging. According to Palmer, the hardest styles of beer to brew at home are the Belgian sour beers. They’re made with sour bacteria cultures in addition to yeast, and can take up to two years to mature. And a lot can go wrong in two years.

The other style that thwarts novice brewers are American lagers, such as Budweiser and Coors. The flavors in these light beers are delicate and readily apparent, Palmer says, so there’s no room for error.

Sound like something you’d be interested in, but you don’t know a lager from an ale? The Lawrence Brewers Guild is the place to start. Chuck Ferguson, president of the Lawrence Brewers Guild, says new members are always welcome. The guild holds monthly meetings, and each meeting begins with a brewing-related seminar and concludes with socializing and home brew tasting. For more information, visit the group’s Web site at www.lawrencebrewers.org.

While home brewing isn’t cheaper than picking up a case of your favorite beer at the store, it does have its advantages. “The biggest advantage is taste,” Palmer says. “When compared to mega breweries, if you’re interested in beer flavors or matching beers with meals, that’s where home-crafted beers come into play.”

In the end, brewing it yourself is like any other hobby: It doesn’t necessarily save you money; it’s just a way to spend time doing something you enjoy.