Back to Blog
Starting a homebrew shop in garage7/1/2023 ![]() Although he continues to brew beer and to speak at beer events around the globe, Papazian, who is 71, is in the process of slowly withdrawing from the grassroots industry he helped create and sustain over the past four decades. If he sounded wistful, it was not for nothing. Left, a pot made for Papazian decades ago by the Wisconsin company Stoelting (it now specializes in ice cream equipment), which Papazian uses to strain grain husks before adding the wort to the fermenter Right, a hydrometer to check the wort’s sugar content, which will be measured again after fermenting to calculate the amount of alcohol in the finished beer. “What a gift to be able to hear something like that.” “People still approach me and say, ‘That mantra, it’s changed the way I look at the world,’” Papazian said. Many a successful brewmaster learned the trade from The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. Global sales of the book reportedly exceed 1.3 million copies, but that number, however impressive, doesn’t come close to conveying the book’s vast readership, for dog-eared copies are passed from one generation of beer-makers to the next, an initiation, a rite of passage. The words have since appeared on T-shirts, on bumper stickers and beer caps, and most famously, in Papazian’s beer-making bible, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, now in its fourth printing. ![]() The words had come to him and his fellow homebrewer Charlie Matzen back in the 1970s. Have a homebrew.” It was Papazian’s motto. I noticed an old poster, a little yellowed with age, hanging above one of the workbenches. ![]() He’s saving that one for the day she turns 21 and can enjoy it with him. A beer he brewed on the occasion of the birth of his daughter, Carla, now 10 years old. Collectible beers from trips to Denmark, South America, England. Some early beers from San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company, one of the first microbreweries in the United States. Canned editions from the beginning of his career, when he was still a grade school teacher, homebrewing in his spare time. These are the beers for remembering.” He pulled down a few keepsakes. “The cooler out there-that has the beers for drinking. “These are the collectibles,” he said, dragging his finger over the bottles that lined the shelves. “But it’s a version of the same set-up I’ve always used. “People expect some sort of high-tech lab,” Papazian says. With biology, with chemistry! With life itself! Take yeast, for example: Depending on temperature, pressure, motion, it gives off different compounds. “That’s because the enzymes in your mouth are breaking down the starches.” He went on, “Now look, I don’t want to get too Zen-like, but what I’ve always loved about brewing is that you’re dealing with organisms. “You’ll notice that the longer you chew, the sweeter the barley gets,” he said. He encouraged me to taste a small handful of the grain. Smooth and not overly assertive.”Ĭrossing the garage, he found the barley he’d used for a different batch. “It’s got a porter-like quality to it, doesn’t it?” he asked. It tasted soft each sip melted on the tongue, like chocolate. “As a hello, or as a thank-you.” He offered me a pour of a recent concoction: a dark lager made with hops he’d grown in the field behind the garage. “I go to visit a buddy, or I give a talk, and I bring some beer,” he explained. He does not sell it, preferring to dole out samples to friends. These days, Papazian brews a five-gallon batch of beer about once a month-typically a lager or an ale. Right, Papazian has kept detailed notes about his yeasty adventures in journals stretching back decades. ![]() This article is a selection from the June 2020 issue of Smithsonian magazine Buy Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine now for just $12 ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |