Like a doctor examining an X-ray, Steve Piatz stared hard at a glass of weizen beer. He swirled it, smelled it, held it up to a light. Just as he was about to finally taste it, though, a comment from another table broke his concentration.

"This math doesn't add up," another judge said, looking down at a surprisingly complicated score sheet.

Said Piatz, with a laugh: "Go figure. Beer and math don't mix."

Such was the oddly focused but unavoidably haphazard (or hop-hazard?) scene inside the Creative Activities Annex at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds last weekend.

While booths for the jammaking and knitting contests sat quiet, their neighbors from the fifth annual Minnesota State Fair Homebrewing Competition turned out at 9 a.m. on a Saturday to get down to business downing beers.

They had their work cut out for them: The number of entries in the contest has quadrupled since it began in 2003 to 346 beers this year.

Culminating today with a best-in-show ceremony, the competition reflects a trend that's brewing statewide.

Homebrewing is bubbling over in Minnesota. Two of the biggest homebrew supply stores in the country are based in the Twin Cities, and so are several national award-winning homebrewers.

"We're really starting to get national recognition," said Steve Fletty, president of the St. Paul Homebrewers Club.

The St. Paul group was named 2007 homebrew club of the year at the National Homebrew Competition in Denver. Its 100 or so members had more winning beers in the contest than any other club.

"We took the title from San Diego, which won it for like five years running," bragged Fletty, who won the national award for best brewer of mead (beer made from honey).

Learning from each other

Gary Glass, director of the American Homebrewers Association, confirmed the Twin Cities' burgeoning reputation.

"There are two components for a city or region to become homebrewing hotbeds: having a good supply store, and then having these clubs where the brewers can work off each other and learn from each other," Glass said. "You clearly have both those things going on now in the Twin Cities now."

The metro area's two homebrew shops -- Midwest Brewing Supply in Minneapolis and Northern Brewer in St. Paul -- both have mail- and Internet-order services that ship products internationally.

"They have enough supplies to start a brewery and ingredients from all over the world, and they're just a short drive away," gushed Adam Stern, the fair's judge and competition coordinator. "That's definitely been a big factor in creating the high number of fine local homebrewers."

Midwest Brewing Supply owner Dave Turbenson opened his store in 1996 at the height of what he called "the first wave of homebrewing fads." Since then, he has twice moved to bigger locations.

Turbenson said the trend in homebrewing today is not that more people are doing it, but that the ones doing it are much more serious about it.