All bottled up: 'You gotta drink beer to make beer,' say the men behind Cypress Brewing Co.

Wrapped in the sweet, sultry steam clouds that billow off the mash pot, Jason Renaud gets his first tantalizing hint of what's brewing.

"I love the smell of it," he says with a slow-spreading grin. "This is my favorite part."

Berry Hooper, left, pours in the ingredients to make a pale ale while Jason Renaud mixes it with hot water. (Photo by Glenn Landberg, glandberg@semissourian.com)

He and his business partner, Berry Hooper, together known as Cypress Brewing Co., are making their own craft beer in Charleston, Missouri, trying to resurrect a discontinued IPA (India pale ale) from an online recipe.

The pair have been brewing together for the better part of the past decade, but their history goes back further than that. From their brewing headquarters in Hooper's carport, Renaud points across Cypress Street -- from which their operation takes its name -- to a gray house up the block.

"I was born in that house right there," he says. The two played baseball together in high school before Hooper went to college in Memphis and got married, whereupon he received a home-brewing kit as a wedding present.

Berry Hooper checks the temperature of the water that will be added to start the beer making process Friday, March 20, 2015 in Charleston, Missouri. (Glenn Landberg)

"That was 16 years ago," Hooper explains. "That's where it starts. I liked drinking craft beer."

Berry Hooper checks the temperature of the brew Friday, March 20, 2015 in Charleston, Missouri. (Glenn Landberg)

When Renaud heard Hooper had moved home and was asking people to save empties for bottling his own concoctions, the pair decided to collaborate.

Now they're out trying a new batch in Hooper's 5-gallon pot about once a month, and they've got their process down pat.

"What it boils down to is a lot of measuring volumes and hitting certain temperatures," Hooper says.

It involves a lot of transferring hot water into different containers to cook with a special blend of mash and hops that Hooper and Renaud purchase online. Other than one of the stainless-steel pots, the rest of Cypress' equipment is appropriated from other appliances, such as the modified turkey fryer they use to heat the water.

Berry Hooper explains what happens with the mash after draining all the liquid from it Friday, March 20, 2015 in Charleston, Missouri. (Glenn Landberg)

But a proclivity for D.I.Y. endeavors is how they got it in their heads to make their own beer in the first place.

"I like doing that part of it, too, just making things work," says Hooper, who studied sculpture in college and worked for a time as a carpenter.

But it turns out brewing involves a lot of standing around, which they don't mind, either. It gives them an opportunity to put on some Widespread Panic and pour a couple glasses of a previous batch. The D.I.Y. ethos applies to drinking it yourself, as well.

Berry Hooper, left, stands in his carport with Jason Renaud, where they brew beer in Charleston, Missouri. (Photo by Glenn Landberg, glandberg@semissourian.com)

"You gotta drink beer to make beer," Hooper says.

And after all, that golden-amber-y smell coming off the mash is such a tease. It's vague, lying somewhere between beer, molasses and freshly baked bread, which coincidentally, it can be used for.

Headline Bold:Berry Hooper explains an app he uses to help log the data for his brewing process.

"If you dry them out, you can use those spent grains for bread," Renaud says, adding with almost guilty pleasure, "I like to use them for pizza crust."

But they can't enter pizza crust in local competitions, so it's a good thing their beers stand on their own. Renaud and Hooper, though they brew together, take turns at the helm, and both have won a number of ribbons and people's choice honors at local beer festivals.

But the thing about their hobby is that good beers as well as not-so-good ones send them back to the drawing board. You know, for science.