This past week Earl and I, along with his daughter and son-in-law, went to the Saugatuck Brewing Company — about an hour from our house — to redeem Earl’s birthday gift certificate. Now maybe you’re thinking we went to drink beer, but the reality is we went to make our own microbrew. After sampling various options the brewery offered, Earl chose a dark Porter; and a staff member at SBC pulled out the recipe on a well-used sheet of paper.
It’s quite a process, almost akin to those scientific experiments we did in high school chemistry . . . only more fun. For four hours, we weighed and measured grains, steeped water, and added yeast into a huge container that you stir with paddles the size of small oars. In between steps, we ate pizza and reminisced about how Earl’s dad made his own beer for his wedding in the 1930s. It was a sweet, sentimental evening.
At the end, the beer was poured into a plastic container to ferment. This takes about two weeks, when we’ll return to bottle our own– hopefully — delicious brew. In the meantime I’m reminded of a saying that is attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
We’re going to end up with about sixty 22 ounce bottles of beer, so I’m hopeful we’ll be very, very happy. To learn more about this unique experience, go to www.sbrewing.com.
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