Description:

Stouts, lagers, and pale ales, oh my! Home brewed beer is super tasty, easy to make, and a big hit with family and friends. This presentation-discussion class is a basic primer for making your own beer at home.

Brewing beer from malt, hops, water, and yeast is a 10,000-year-old tradition, and there are currently an estimated 850,000 homebrewers in the United States. After an overview of the history of brewing, we'll talk about the ingredients and the steps needed to make beer at home. We'll introduce you to resources for describing beer properties, troubleshooting fermentation, and sharing recipes. Join us and learn how to craft the perfect pint!

Class Goals:

The goal of this intro class is to educate students with the tools they need to make tasty beer at home! Students will...

• Understand the basic methods of making beer using simple kitchen equipment
• Learn the properties of beer ingredients like malt enzymes, alpha acids, and yeast life cycle.
• Develop solid sanitization habits
• Overview bottling, kegging, storage, and serving
• Be introduced to the Beer Judges Certification Program, the classification system for beer styles
• See an overview of BeerSmith 2 software to create, adjust, and re-create fantastic recipes
• Be prepared to make a batch of beer at home!

This discussion-centric class will help us gauge interest in teaching hands-on homebrew workshops in the future!

Prerequisites:

Students must be 21 years of age or older. Must have an open mind if your favorite beers are Bud, Miller, Coors, or Pabst.

Materials:

Bring Your Own. This is not a tasting, a bottle swap, or bring-your-best contest. (Keep your eye out for those events in the future!) Just bring yourself a couple beers to enjoy while we talk. We'll run about two hours each week and you have to get home safely.

Recommended: Beersmith 2 software trial download (free)

Instructor Biography:

Eric Van Dyke thinks about one thing and one thing only–how things are made.  As a manufacturing engineer, he enjoys the company of high-powered robots, loud assembly lines, molten plastics, and shiny metals.  He’s published research on high-speed aluminum machining, competed in robot design competitions, and loves photography.  Eric is an industrial fermentation engineer by day and an avid beer homebrewer by night.  He will help you rebuild the world after the zombies have come and gone.