Beer: Minnesota homebrewers are doing it for themselves

Thirty or so men and a few women have set up shop in a parking lot, ready to drink away a sunny Saturday afternoon. There's no sporting event to tailgate, but the tables full of beer bottles and jury-rigged coolers running a series of kegs — jockey boxes in the crew's nomenclature — would make any college football fan drool.

The mild-mannered posse with all the "interesting" beers are members of the Minnesota Home Brewers Association, one of the state's premier home-brew clubs. They have gathered outside a St. Louis Park home-brew supply shop for the fifth annual Home Brew Fest.

"This is a chance for all levels to bring in a home-brew," MHBA treasurer Gera Exire LaTour said of the members-only beer competition. "We have people who just started brewing and just started becoming a member of the club, and people who have been doing it for 20-some years."

As Minnesota breweries have proliferated, a pocket community of amateur beer makers also has thrived, with a network of clubs and a vibrant competition circuit. The state is home to 57 home-brew clubs registered with the American Homebrewers Association, which holds its annual rally on Saturday alongside a Big Brew Day event at Lucid Brewing in Minnetonka.

"Home-brew clubs are a big part of the hobby," the association's director, Gary Glass, said by phone.

For Big Brew Day — a national home-brew holiday of sorts — Lucid welcomes up to 50 pre-registered home brewers to brew in its parking lot from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and hosts seminars and demonstrations starting at 10 a.m. The two-for-one event also precedes the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild's weeklong 10,000 Minutes of Minnesota Craft Beer, with dozens of statewide festivities running May 5-11.

Home-brew clubs range in size from the MHBA, founded in 1986 and boasting more than 220 members, to smaller cliques with such punny names as Mötley Brüe and Prairie Homebrewing Companions. Overlapping membership is common and while some clubs have more formal meetings and agendas, like the Nordeast Brewers Alliance, which focuses on beer education, others are more freewheeling.

While sharing home-brews in public, as happens at most club get-togethers and home-brew competitions, is a legal no-no, the relevant state law is seldom enforced.

Longballa, a 22-year member who purportedly makes a mean wild rice lager, said home brewing is experiencing its third spike since the late 1980s. It might be the hobby du jour for woolly twenty-somethings, but when Longballa started, DIY brewing was almost a necessity. "At that point there weren't the myriad craft beers that you could obtain now," he said. "So if you wanted an Oktoberfest, you had to make it. If you wanted a porter, you had to make it."

The Twin Cities area is home to two of the country's most active home-brew clubs — the MHBA and the St. Paul Homebrewers Club — and many top-ranked beer judges, Glass said. But the novice brewing uptick is part of a national trend. American Homebrewers Association membership has more than quadrupled since 2005, thanks partly to millennials mashing in for the first time, he said.

New MHBA member Caleb Levar attended his first club event last Saturday, but the 26-year-old St. Paul man already has five years of fermenting under his belt. "I actually brewed my first batch so it was ready for my 21st birthday," he said. "It was crap, but you learn."

Since then the sour lover's beers have gotten favorable marks at the Upper Mississippi Mash-Out — one of the nation's largest home-brew competitions to be based in the Twin Cities. Home-brew contests like the mash-out are often sponsored by local clubs and judged by beer geeks ordained by the Beer Judge Certification Program.

"Three years ago we were probably giving 300-some BJCP exams a year. Last year we gave like 1,100," said Piatz, who also leads two of Saturday's seminars. "We couldn't meet demand. That's just all we could handle."

Years ago home-brew had a reputation (at least among outsiders) for being subpar, cautiously ingested to avoid hurt feelings. But brewers and beer judges, who are typically one and the same, say the overall quality has improved as information and better ingredients have become more readily available online and at home-brew supply shops such as Northern Brewer and Midwest Supplies. They also point to clubs and competitions as places for swapping tips and providing critical feedback.

"Little by little you get better with each brew," said Tyler Bye of the Nord­east Brewers Alliance. "It gets to the point where you're hooked and it's more a borderline obsession than a hobby."

This weekend, south Minneapolis' Du Nord Craft Spirits becomes the latest local liquor maker with bottles on the shelf. On Friday, the distillery helmed by husband-wife team Shanelle and Chris Montana rolls out its debut L'Etoile du Nord vodka, produced from corn and sugar beets. Du Nord becomes Minneapolis' second up-and-running microdistillery, following northeast Minneapolis' Norseman Distillery, launched late last year.

A North Dakota beer-and-burger chain has come to northeast Minneapolis. Last week JL Beers opened its bar and restaurant a few doors down from Keegan's Irish Pub. It boasts 40 taps and a stable of house burgers priced around $4-$6, and is open daily from 11 a.m. to midnight.

www.jlbeers.com

St. Paul's Flat Earth Brewing Co. has moved into new digs in the former Hamm's Brewery site. The Cygnus slingers are open for growler sales from noon to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and public tastings from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and noon to 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

688 E. Minnehaha Av., St. Paul, 651-698-1945, www.flatearthbrewing.com

Michael Rietmulder writes about bars, beer and nightlife.