Homebrewing

This article is about a home brewing club in McAllen Texas;

Julian Ybarra, manager and craft beer specialist of the Blue Onion restaurant, and Jim Thalacker, a long-time Winter Texan from Iowa, will host the first meeting of a new club for residents interested in home brewing beer. The meeting is at 5 p.m. Thursday, at the Blue Onion in Weslaco. Then, on Saturday, Nov. 3, the club will host a national Learn to Homebrew Day event at the same location from 4 to 10 p.m. It is free and open to the public.

This is cool, if you teach people about the ingredients and processes involved in brewing beer they are more likely to drink craft beer.  Its argued that home brewers have been the growth catalyst of the craft beer industry. 

There are endless possibilities for the ingredients home brewers might use, from chocolate and cherry to cilantro, something Ybarra recently tried. Additionally, the two men hope that with the club, brewers can learn methods from one another, share equipment if needed, save a little by buying bulk ingredients and also save money on drinking beer in general.

Homebrews are usually made in 5 to 10 gallon batches.  This allows for experimental beers to be created.  On a more industrial scale it can be harder to replicate radical home brew recipes. 

Perhaps one of the most attractive things about home brewing is cost. Ybarra estimates that for every five-gallon batch he makes, which equals about 48 beers, the cost is $28. As with any recipe, the cost can go up or down based on the type of ingredients used, Thalacker notes.

I think mine come out to be a around a dollar a beer.  I am hoping to drive the cost down as I strive towards all grain brewing.  A lot of microbrewery owners start out home brewing, just like these two men who enjoy drinking and brewing beer!

Mark Pavlik, 27, of Latrobe and Christian Simmons, 30, of Unity hope to move Pavlik’s home-brewing operation into a 6,000-square-foot warehouse on Mission Road, where they want to operate by next spring a microbrewery to produce four craft beers and a dozen seasonal beers that will be sold in kegs and growlers, a customer’s personal half-gallon beer container.

The men have discussed the idea of forming a business from Pavlik’s home operation since the fall of 2011, Simmons said. They formed Four Seasons Brewing Co. Inc. last month, using Pavlik’s Latrobe address as its offices, according to state Corporation Bureau records.

They dont have a liquor license yet so selling there product is illegal, but its not illegal to host tastings.

Because Four Seasons does not have a liquor license, Pavlik and Simmons are not permitted to sell their beer. Friends and family get to taste it, and the two have taken it to beer tasting events, such as they did last week at D’s SixPax & Dogz in Monroeville.

Starting small and keeping there day jobs

While neither Simmons nor Pavlik intends to give up his day jobs as a construction worker and electric utility technician, respectively, Pavlik will be the brew master and Simmons will handle sales and marketing. They are trying to get their business up and running by the end of the first quarter because beer sales are highest in the second and third quarters, Simmons said.

Between the two of them, keeping there days jobs, assuming they work 40 hours a week and then investing 15 hours into this side business might be enough to get it up and running.