Brew your own beer at Brewer's App!

The Brewer's Apprentice
179 South Street
Freehold, NJ 07728
(732)-863-9411 
(possibly moving to a new address come September)
www.brewapp.com

Was this serendipity or what! We took out "Jersey Brew" from our local library. This covers the history of beermaking here in Jersey and is full of fun facts, such as:


a. Back in the day, our fine state enjoyed the rich variety of brews thanks to the strong beer culture of European immigrants who came over from the old world. Beer was a staple drink in Europe back then because of problems with getting potable water. They brought this tradition over, so beermaking at home was one of the things that everybody did!

b. Jersey led the country in terms of the number of commercial breweries.  The Prohibition devastated this industry. The breweries tried to survive by brewing no-alcohol beer (very unpopular) and on the side made regular beer to be sold illicitly.


c. Jersey voted against the Prohibition. But since it passed, a black market for beer grew. Jersey history is replete with gangstas and mob bosses, and everyone was in cahoots with the local law enforcement! (I guess it's unsurprising that corruption is a local tradition here too?)

d. In the end, everybody did go to jail.  Prohibition was repealed, but by then, the surviving breweries were just too weak. Other commercial breweries took over and now dominate the industry.  Hence the ubiquity of weak-as-water American lager being the popular style today. 


So anyway, back to the serendipity. Soon after we took out Jersey Brew, we got invited to our first-ever brewmakin session! Brewer's Apprentice is in Freehold, NJ and is the largest brew supply shop and has the only in-house brew-your-own facilities open to the public here in Jersey. 

So with a group of seven people, we reserved three kettles to make three different beers on one fine Sunday.

Inside, the brew-your-own section feels like an industrial kitchen, with stainless steel tables, jugs, vats and sacks of raw material, weighing scales, and huge kettles.

Brew App has a nice collection of recipes covering the major brew styles.  DJKung and I were in charge of making Celebrate Ale, which is described as a hoppy thirst-quenching IPA.  The rest of the gang had the Hirschengarten Marzen, an Oktoberfest-type brew, and a Belgian Trippel, a richer brew.  Since most of the group had already been a-brewin' here for several years, we kinda just followed their lead.  You get a printout of the recipes and the steps are easy to follow.

First, you measure and weigh out your grains, which are kept in plastic bins underneath your workstation.  Here, DJKung is measuring out some Crystal Pils grains (a type of whole grain malted barley). 

The grains are then ground (mechanically, in our case).  You do have the option of hand-cranking out your grains in a regular mill. 

Measuring out the extract, which adds loads of sugar and a malty taste.  This one here is pale extract.  There are of course different types of extract, which would add different qualities to the beer.

The grains are added to already pre-measured hot water in the kettles.  (They use municipal tap water.)  The grains are steeped for thirty minutes.

While the malted grains are boiling/seeping, we got the hops ready.  On left: the different hops pellets stored in BrewApp's hops fridge.  The hops pellets are made from the flowers of hop vines, and are used to add that bitter beer taste.  Since Celebrate Ale is an IPA, we measured out quite a bit of these hops pellets.   We used Chinook and Cascade for our bittering hops; Cascade and Irish Moss for our finishing hops; more Cascade as out dry/steeping hops.  On right: other flavoring agents available.

So the three steel bowls correspond to the hops we used at the bittering, finishing and for steeping. 

After steeping for thirty minutes, you strain out the grains from the liquid.  By this point, the "soup" is already smelling heavenly, like Ovaltine and malt.  On right is Jonathan, one of the Brew App staff, explaining that they recyclethe resulting mash as animal feed.

The liquid is then heated up again close to boiling, and you get to add your extracts and bittering hops, if any. Then you have to keep a close eye on your kettle and keep stirring occasionally, so it doesn't boil over.

You let everything boil for the next thirty minutes.  The bits of hops tend to foam and stick to the sides so you have to stir them back in once in a while.

BrewApp customers have a tradition of donating some of their brews to the house, which BrewApp then shares with other customers.  We got to try five different brews from generous BrewApp customers:  Belgian Abbey (sweet and flavorful), Smithywich (meh), Alaskan Amber (hoppy), Barley Wheat (light on the hops with faint fruitiness) and a Hefeweisen-style brew.   

I think we should cut these guys off!

Here's a nice overall picture of the BrewApp operation.  There are five kettles in total.  The storage for all the nascent brews is in a room off to the side (not pictured).

The finishing hops are then added, and the wort (the resulting mixture) is left to cool a bit.   It is then  transferred into these plastic drums, where they settle and do their thing for the next 2-3 weeks.  Any dry hops are then placed in a cheesecloth and suspended in the wort.  I guess the staff add whatever yeast is needed, since we did not add any. 

DJKung with the fruits of our labor. 

Measuring the specific gravity of the wort; basically, this indicates how much extract (sugar) is dissolved;  a higher value means that the final product will have a higher alcohol concentration. At this point, the worts were all very thick and syrupy.  As expected, the Trippel had the heaviest specific gravity.   

What I like about best in this whole experience was that it was very tangible---our sweat and diligence in measuring, pouring, stirring--- all of this went into the product, which we know will be awesome.  It is amazing to see how many variables can be tweaked to yield subtle or dramatic changes.  We get to come back in three weeks, when our beers are ready!!! Can't wait!!!