ALE YEAH!
BY MARTIN CIPOLLINI
You too can brew delicious beer at home. Here’ s a beginner’ s guide.
Some years ago, having spent time perfecting my home-brewing game( and getting a professional certificate to boot), I proudly told my mom that I could now brew very good beer at home. Then in her 80s, she turned and said,“ Oh, I know all about that. My mother and I brewed beer in our basement back in the 1940s.” Duly chastened, I subsequently learned that prior to the rise of Big Beer( the major breweries), beer was often brewed at home by women. So my mom and grandmother weren’ t alone in their cellar witchcraft. Major breweries eventually captured the market, and home brewing fell out of common practice by the 1960s. In fact, after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, home brewing remained illegal due to an inadvertent omission in the
26 | NW GEORGIA LIVING JULY / AUGUST 2025 legislation that allowed folks to make wine at home but not beer. President Jimmy Carter signed a bipartisan bill changing that law in 1978, and home brewing took off as an art and a pastime. A fair number of the craft breweries that many of us know and love got their start with a couple of buddies brewing in their garage. If you want to give it a try yourself, here’ s some basic information you need to know.
Introduction
Homebrewing can be as simple or as complex as you like. The basic ingredients are barley malt, hops, water, and yeast. Of course, you can’ t just throw it all in a pot and stand back, so read on to discover the key steps involved, plus some handy home-brewing resources.
Legality
Brewing your own beer at home is legal in the state of Georgia, but there are certain limitations. Visit homebrewersassociation. org / homebrewing-rights / statutes / georgia for more information.
Equipment
The equipment needed is most often bought as a kit and includes a metal( versus aluminum) pot, a fermenter( usually plastic), flexible tubing, and either bottles or kegs to put the beer in. Most other necessities can be found in any well-equipped kitchen, such as a food scale, a metal or plastic ladle, and a thermometer.
Sanitization
Sanitization is important, but it need not cause stress. Home brewing is very safe( you won’ t poison yourself), but you want your beer yeast to grow, not some smelly microbe. So all equipment needs to be sanitized by heat or with chemicals such as iodophors or no-rinse acids for items potentially damaged by heat.
Boiling and Hopping
After sanitization, the brewing begins by getting barley malt into water and boiling it for about an hour. The simplest methods use malt extract, which comes in dry or liquid form. You just mix in the amount the recipe calls for and slowly bring it to a boil. Hops, in the form of leaves or pellets, are added at various times during the boil— early to extract bitterness, midway through to provide flavor, and at the end to enhance aroma. Small bags of specialty grains may also be added to boost the flavor and color. The resulting liquid is called wort.