Now that you know all the hard work that goes into beer making, you either want to find the closest lounge chair and appreciate the fact that all you had to do was find a bottle opener--or you've caught the brewers' bug and want to make your own. If you fall into the latter category, read on. With a small budget, a bit of space, and a lot of patience, you can have a craft brew all your own.

The Rise of Homebrewing

After Prohibition, the laws restricting home brewing were neglected and remained in place until 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill into law that once again allowed people to brew small amounts of beer and wine at home. The next year, he signed another bill, this time to deregulate the brewing industry.

These two bills revolutionized the beer industry. Home brewing became hugely popular in the '80s and '90s as a result of the first bill. As homebrewers became more serious about brewing, the second bill, which made it easier to open a brewery, allowed them to take beer making from hobby to business venture.

At the time that Jimmy Carter signed the deregulation bill into effect in 1979, only eighty-nine breweries existed in the United States. By 2013, 2,822 breweries were in business, with an overwhelming majority of those defined as craft breweries.

The Cost of Homebrewing

Aside from the pride you'll take in crafting your own brew, homebrewing is also a cost effective way to enjoy beer. The tools of the trade generally cost about $100 to begin with, and ingredient kits run between twenty and forty dollars. Considering that one batch makes a whopping five gallons of beer, you end up breaking even within the first four or five batches.

Supplies

Here's what you'll need to get started:

• A Large Pot: It's best to find a pot that holds at least three gallons. Five gallons is ideal because the larger pot will help to contain the liquid without getting quite so messy.

Beer making kits are the easiest way to get the rest of the materials you'll need to get started. These are available online or at local homebrewing shops. The American Homebrewers Association website can help you find a homebrewing supply store near you. Most beer making kits include:

• An Airtight Fermenting Bucket: These come either as five gallon plastic buckets with lids or glass bottles of the same size (called carboys). You might want to start with the plastic buckets but eventually it's best to upgrade to a carboy, as since it's more sanitary and impacts flavor favorably.
• An Air Lock and Stopper: These will ensure that your container is airtight.

• Tubing and Clamp: These provide the roadway your beer will travel on to get into the bottles. The clamp attaches the bucket or carboy to the tube.

• A Bottle Filler: The bottle filler attaches to the other end of the tube and allows you to easily fill your bottles.

• A Thermometer – A floating thermometer with a range of 0 to 100 Celsius or up from 32 to 220 Fahrenheit.

• A Bottle Capper: This device clamps bottle caps onto your bottles, ensuring your brew's freshness.

• Bottle Brush: Are you planning on re-using your bottles? We applaud you! Make sure they're clean by purchasing a bottle brush.
• A Bottle Capper: This device clamps bottle caps onto your bottles, ensuring your brew's freshness.

You'll need to purchase these supplies separately:

• Bottles: For five gallons of beer, you'll need two cases of glass bottles. To keep your beer as fresh as possible, buy bottles that require a bottle opener. Twist off bottles tend to allow for some air leakage.

• Bottle Caps: Purchase about fifty bottle caps per batch. If you're planning on brewing often, buy these in bulk.
• Sanitizer: Because of the need for fermentation, it's important for every piece of equipment to be thoroughly sanitized. Your local brewing store will have solutions on hand to make the sanitization process easy.

Ingredients

The ingredients you purchase will depend largely on the type of beer you want to make. As you already know, all beers contain water, malted grain, hops, and yeast. The proportions depend on which recipe you're following. Many brewer supply stores sell pre-packaged kits to make the process even more streamlined. The American Homebrewers' Association also has a comprehensive database of free recipes on their website.

The Process

Basic beer made using malt extract takes about a month to make from start to finish, so you could say that brewing is a lesson in patience. Here's some advice from Gulf Island Brewery brewmaster, Murray Hunter, on homebrewing.

The Boil: The first step in the beer making process involves boiling water, malt extract, and hops together for about ninety minutes. During this process, the extract is sterilized and the flavor of the hops is released.

Fermentation: The liquid resulting from the boil is called the wort. Once it's cooled to room temperature, it's poured into the fermenter--the large bucket or carboy--where more water is added until it reaches five gallons. At this step, it's vital for every piece of equipment, the surrounding area, and your hands to be very clean, as the mixture can easily become infected. The beer is sealed off to prevent leakage during the fermentation period, which lasts between one and two weeks.

Priming and Bottling: The beer must be transferred into another container before being bottled. In this transition container, priming sugars are mixed with the beer, which is then poured into bottles using a tube and bottle filler.

Aging: Now comes the hard part: waiting! The beer must age for two to six weeks to develop the carbon dioxide that makes beer fizzy.

Now that you know how to make beer, you may be wondering how you can do it professionally. In the next chapter we'll talk about how you can get on the path to becoming a professional brewmaster.