HOMEBREWERS AND THE YEAR OF "THE LONELY" BEER

HOMEBREWERS

and the year of "The Lonely Beer"

Story by: MATTHEW H. BROWN

The year 2020 handed us all a haymaker that no one saw coming. Shops closed, people sequestered in their homes, and homebrewers sat uninspired and full of malaise. Events that inspired incredible fermented offerings, or collaborations between professional and amateur brewers alike, were all put aside in the collective effort to stem the rampant onslaught of the pandemic. COVID-19 had cut us off from easily one of the greatest facets of beer culture – socialization. Getting through this year wasn’t at all about experiential learning or driving the craft forward; it was about survival.

I sat down with Gregg Carine, a 25-year homebrewer and member of the Portland Mashing Maineiacs over a pint at Foundation Brewing in Portland to get his perspective on the year prior and how many of homebrewers navigated the tricky situation. He elaborated on the utter disconnect that so many of the club members seemed to feel and the fact that virtual events were such a terrible substitute for the interpersonal elements that make a beer club great.

“I brew to share at a party, or a wedding, for example,” he said. “That completely ended. I still have 30 gallons of beer in storage – some of it probably went bad. Truthfully, my cocktail consumption went up.”

Making five gallons or 50 gallons is often the same amount of time intensity for small homebrew operations, so spending that amount of time to make anything that cannot be shared wasn’t a good use of time for many. Much of it will end up spoiling, or else homebrewers will make a narrow suite of styles that could feasibly last extended periods of time. In either event, the benefits waned and the local club went dormant. Homebrewing is very social hobby for many, and without that outlet to share their product with others, many simply gave it up. With the proliferation of good local breweries in the area, many homebrewers found it a better strategy to support those institutions and no longer brew at home. A major issue

Carine brought up was that the demographic of the club was getting older and that they didn’t have a younger, core group to help drive enthusiasm. I left the conversation largely deflated. I then called the man that taught me to homebrew. Brian Hall, now in Anchorage, Alaska, lived for four years in Portland while his wife was in a residency program at Maine Medical. He rapidly became a respected and venerated member of Portland underground brewing scene and so I decided to compare his experiences in Alaska to ours locally. His response was sadly similar.

“Zoom meetings with our local club felt largely unappealing,” he lamented. “I had them on in the background and generally ignored the content. I spent most of my time focusing on rebuilding my homebrewing set up, and I know lots of members who made beer that just sat around and went bad. It wasn’t a great time.” The situation wasn’t confined to our region, it seems.

With vaccination rates climbing, and the country beginning to open up, where do we see the incubator system of Maine beer culture going in the post-COVID reality? And how do we better encourage a younger group of enthusiasts to join the ranks and breathe fresh life into the craft? Perhaps the best course is to leverage both amateur and professional brewers. As regulations relax in the post-COVID reality, inspiring a new generation of homebrewers could be fostered between existing homebrewers and professional brewhouses. Homebrewers make the art approachable while professionals can offer resources and talented minds. The fusion of these two forces could serve to inspire new generation of enthusiasts. And who knows where that could lead? Perhaps to your next favorite brewery.

Alaskan homebrewer, Brian Hall. Photo by Matthew Brown The author Matthew Brown brewing at home. Photo by Brendan Porter

MATTHEW H. BROWN has been a homebrewer for seven years and is a Certified Cicerone. He lives in the East Deering neighborhood of Portland and works in finance.