Complex Numbers

Brew-tality

Inspired by "Invalid Item"  , though this particular observance wasn't in the suggested prompts. The first Saturday in November is officially:

    Learn to Homebrew Day  

One question I get asked on a regular basis, once someone discovers that I'm a beer snob (which happens pretty quickly, but not as quickly as some people tell you "I'm a vegan."): "So, do you brew your own beer?"

No.

Not just no, but HELL no.

I mean, sure, the process is fascinating, and as with most work, I could watch others do it all day. And I'm glad some people are into that, because that's how we get brewers at craft breweries. So, of course, being curious, I looked into it, and discovered that home brewing is approximately 1% enjoying the product; 3% brewing; and 98% cleaning and sterilizing.

Yes, I'm aware those add up to >100%; I'm using hyperbole to emphasize just how much I hate, loathe, and despise cleaning.

Why do all that work when I can go to a bar or brewpub and, using the fruits of my other labors, purchase a delicious golden beverage that's the result of other peoples' labor? It's not like diamonds, coffee, smartphones, clothing, avocados, or chocolate; you can be fairly confident that craft beer in the US isn't brewed using slave or child labor.

Still, I wanted to take a moment to appreciate that here in the purported Land of the Free, we have the freedom to brew our own beer, if we want to put in the really outrageously tremendous amount of work involved. It wasn't always that way.

I'm not just talking about those dark times known as Prohibition, either. Once Prohibition was lifted—an anniversary I also celebrate, coming up next month—it took a while before home brewing was legalized.

By "a while," I mean "nearly half a century."

Before Prohibition, brewing had mostly been done at home, though industrialization facilitated commercial breweries more and more as time went on. Many, if not most, of the Founding Fathers of the US were brewers (or their spouses were; brewing, like cooking, was considered largely a woman's job). The entire idea of the American Revolution was fomented (as opposed to fermented) in pubs, so beer is in our DNA, which made Prohibition that much more of a slap in the face to Lady Liberty.

Amendment XXI to the US Constitution, passed on December 5, 1933, repealed the earlier amendment XVIII that created Prohibition. Yay. But home brewing didn't become legal until 1978, 45 years after the repeal of Prohibition. Thanks, Jimmy!

Which is not to say that people didn't break The Law on a regular basis, but the legalization of homebrew led inexorably to our craft beer landscape, which remains the primary reason I travel. Last I checked, which was five minutes ago, there were nearly 10,000 breweries in the US. I'm not even sure how many of those I've visited and/or sampled brew from; my records are spotty, as you might expect after I've had a couple. It's also complicated by the fact that, on average, every week, we lose one and gain two.

With that much beer to choose from, why bother making my own?

No, if I'm going to do work, it's going to be important work, like figuring out how to visit the 9000 or so that I still haven't.