ADOPTING A HOME-BREWED HOBBY

Pouring barley into a blue cooler and adding boiling water got Kyle Sanders a bit closer to drinking his own beer, but he'll still have to wait a couple weeks.

Home brewers say the wait is worth it.

"Once you get the right ingredients, you can't buy beer as fresh as you can make it," said Ed Boudreaux, who joined Sanders and five others in a Cape Girardeau backyard to eat, drink and make beer.

The gathering's host, Bryce Eddings, is looking to unite makers of homemade beer in the area.

"I've always been a fan of specialty beers," Eddings said. "But for the past one-and-a-half years I've been brewing my own."

The group had their first meeting in March, but brewed its first beer Saturday. Once more people commit to coming, the meetings will be scheduled regularly, Eddings said.

When Boudreaux moved to Cape Girardeau from Louisiana about three months ago, he started searching for home brewers. He was previously involved in a brewers' club, and has made beer for 15 years. A friend in Ireland got him started, Boudreaux said.

"They've always been able to make beer, but we haven't," he said.

The federal government legalized home brewing in 1978, but Missouri was among four states that refused to permit beer making at home until 1995.

Producing homemade beer can take between two to five weeks, Boudreaux said. The quickest recipe he knows involves buying malt extract, mixing it with water, boiling the mixture, letting it cool, adding yeast and waiting for the batch to ferment.

A bit of sugar is added during bottling, and then the bottles are left to set for a week.

"You get natural carbonation in the bottle," he said.

Sanders started home brewing five years ago when a shop selling beer making supplies in Rolla, Mo., was going out of business. It gave him a cheap start as a brewer.

Making beer is an experimental process, from the ingredients to the equipment, Sanders said. He had problems with pipes becoming clogged when he siphoned off the grain and water mixture until Eddings helped him design a mesh netting for the pipes.

"People in this hobby invent their own equipment," Sanders said.

The best part is inventing beers, Eddings said. He and Sanders both made cranberry beers that were nothing alike. Eddings figured he left the berries in too long.

"I think I made something that's going to get me in trouble with Ocean Spray," he said.

Home brew is all about variety, Sanders said.

"I made mango beer," he said. "You're not going to find that anywhere."

WANT TO GO?

Home brewers of Southeast Missouri meet monthly. Call Bryce Eddings at 335-1420 for more information.