Tapping Into Home Brewing

“You have to like beer to brew beer,” Anglin said. Blaine Hill/The Hub@TTU

There are an estimated 1.2 million home beer brewers in the United States, according to the American Home Brewers Association, and several of these beer connoisseurs call Lubbock home.

“I never found a beer I didn’t like, or that didn’t like me,” local brewer Bill Hardy said.

Bill Hardy and his son, Tim, are both German-trained master brewers. Bill has been brewing for 20 years and Tim has been brewing for roughly six.

They completed a collaboration program in which they spent eight weeks at the Siebel Institute of Brewing Technology and 13 weeks at the Doemens Academy in Munich.

The Hardys own the only home brew supply store in the area. Blaine Hill/The Hub@TTU

“It’s a lot of knowledge and really what it means is that we can bore you to tears about beer,” Bill Hardy said.

Together the two own Yellow House Canyon Brew Works. The store is the only home brewing ingredient supplier in the area, and caters to new and experienced brewers.

Shawn Anglin, one of their customers, has been brewing beer for around two years. He started after he tasted some home brew at the First Friday Art Trail in Lubbock.

“I was like, ‘You can do that to a beer?’ And they said, ‘Man you can put whatever you want in a beer’,” Anglin said. “I thought it was incredible. The beer they were serving was extremely good. Better than anything I had ever had on the market.”

Now Anglin brews his own beer in the back of his store, Culture Clothing, and serves it during their First Friday Art Trail events.

Anglin’s home brew for this month. He said at this stage the beer is more like a tea. Blaine Hill/The Hub@TTU

Each batch of beer makes around five gallons. The process is relatively cheap, costing about $30 to $40, Anglin said.

The time spent brewing depends on what kind of beer a person wants to brew. There are 129 recognized styles of beer in the U.S., Hardy said.

On brew day, hot water and grains are combined to make mash, which then produces wort, the liquid that will eventually be beer. This process can take anywhere from three to eight hours.

The longest part of brewing, the fermentation process, is the least work for brewers. During the fermentation process, a brewer simply has to maintain temperature and wait for brewing to be done.

During fermentation, the yeast interacts with sugar in the beer to create alcohol. A 5-gallon batch is requires around six pounds of liquid sugar.

“The best way I ever heard it explained was, yeast are little organisms that eat sugar and fart out alcohol,” Anglin said.

Bill Hardy said home brewing is simple enough that anyone can walk into their store, get the ingredients and brew a good beer.

Brewing is so intricate and different each time, the Hardys agreed they could start a beer thinking it will turn out one way and have it taste completely different.

The father and son hope to finish all the necessary requirements to have a license to sell beer at their shop. Until then, they are going to sell ingredients and give out great beer.

“Hopefully, we put Lubbock on the map for beer,” Bill Hardy said.