LIQUID ASSETS CUSTOM BLEND

liquid assets

CUSTOM BLEND 

Creating craft beer to please your palate.

WRITTEN BY MARC TIAR

PHOTOS BY CANDICE NYANDO

Many people appreciate good beer. And availability of beer isn’t a problem, with a decent selection at every mini-mart, grocery store, and liquor shop. But for those who truly love beer, want to get to know it intimately, and are obsessive in their appreciation of the sudsy goodness, the next logical step is brewing your own.

With easy access to all the great beer on the market today, why do people brew their own? Unsurprisingly, it’s for the same reasons they bake their own bread or grow their own veggies. There’s just something inherently more enjoyable about eating or drinking a fresh product you crafted yourself. The process is fun, equal parts cuisine and science project, and you can make exactly what you want, not what someone else decided will sell best in your region. It’s a bit more work, but the results are rewarding.

In a nutshell, a home brewer boils a water/sugar blend extracted from malted barley, adds hops at selected intervals, and yeast. After a couple weeks of fermenting, the beer is poured into bottles or a keg, carbonated, and home brew is born. Like most hobbies, it can be done as simply and cheaply as possible, or grandiose and nearly commercial in scale.

BREWING COMMUNITY

As more people tired of the same thin yellow beers from the major brewing concerns, home brewing grew from an underground hobby with a reputation for questionable results to a vibrant scene. And the home brewing community in the Reno-Tahoe area blossomed as well.

For instance, in the years following national legalization in 1978, a small number of Reno home brewers got together to share their love of beer. One result of that shared enthusiasm was the formation of the Washoe Zephyr Zymurgists homebrew club, still going strong after 25 years and now with more than 100 active members. Among those early pioneers were two men still prominent in the Reno beer world.

Tom Young, owner of Great Basin Brewing Co., and his future partner, Eric McClary, were among the founding fathers of the Reno home brew community. McClary was selling some beer making supplies in his shop, Washoe Wine and Cheese.

“You didn’t get to pick the strain of hops or yeast from dozens of exotic varieties,” Young says, reflecting on the evolution of the craft. “You got hops and you got yeast.”

Young and McClary both continued as home brewers, became some of the first certified beer judges in Nevada, and eventually fulfilled the dream of many a home brewer: opening Nevada’s first brewpub in Sparks. To this day, a number of Great Basin Brewing Co.’s flagship beers are based on home brew recipes created those many years ago. And this empire built on home brew has expanded to a second location (in Reno), with plans to begin bottling soon.

HOME BREW SUPPLIER

Rob Bates, perhaps known equally well by the name of his business The Reno Homebrewer, also was part of the budding Reno home brew scene in the mid-’80s. After McClary’s business closed, around the same time as the home brewer club was forming, Bates thought he could generate enough interest to sustain a dedicated home brew supply store. Twenty-five years later, Bates still owns the only home brew store in the Reno-Sparks area (another supply store, Just Brew It, opened in Carson City recently). He’s survived competition from online vendors and retains his position as the hub of the Reno home brewing community. Situated in a funky warehouse next to the railroad tracks, you often will find some of Reno’s best brewers hanging around, chatting about beer, dogs underfoot, music turned up, and a camaraderie based on beer permeating the shop. Tips and advice are shared freely, and paid classes are offered regularly.

Brewing is, essentially, a simple process. As Bates says, to be able to home brew, “You only need to be able to do three things: boil water, sterilize your equipment, and wait.” A handful of ingredients in the right amounts (being able to read a recipe helps), and just about anyone with an interest can add beer to their cornucopia of home-crafted delectables.

Reno resident Marc Tiar, at times, is a reference librarian and a family man. He always is a fanatic about beer and brewing.