Long Islanders make beer at home for fun and profit

Craig Belson, 27, of Valley Stream, proudly took a sip of the spiced brown ale he brewed back in November as he steeped a muslin bag in a stock pot that sat on two burners. "I can't wait to see how this one turns out," said the smiling home brewer of two years, as he patiently watched brown drippings from the three-pound bag of grain fall into the pot of what eventually would become a porter.

Mike Deinhardt, 56, of Centereach held up his empty 10-gallon firkin and gave a primal scream along with several dozen others who sampled his Scotch Ale made especially for Blue Point's Cask Ale Festival in January. Deinhardt, who has been brewing since 1991, made this batch in his new $1,200 self-contained system that he and a friend built in his garage.

Home brewing equipment and home brewers, themselves, come in all shapes and sizes, but it's the common interest of creating and sampling good, flavorful fermentations that draws them all together.

"My favorite part of the process is brewing with other people and the camaraderie of it all," said Deinhardt, who is the president of the club Brewers East End Revival (BEER). "Summer is great. We'll have a brewfest at my house, and we'll barbecue and just have a fun time."

Craft brewing began to emerge across the country in the late 1970s as the beer industry was beginning to consolidate and President Jimmy Carter legalized home brewing once again. According to the American Homebrewers Association, "The home brewing hobby began to thrive because the only way a person in the United States could experience the beer styles of other countries was to make the beer themselves." By the early 1990s momentum began to pick up for the craft brew industry and about 1,500 microbreweries had popped up around the country.

Passion and determination

In 1991, Mark Burford, now 46 and co-owner and brewmaster at Blue Point Brewing Co. in Patchogue, moved back to Long Island from California and started Great South Bay Home Brew Supply in his basement. He had been working full-time in the computer field-service industry, but his passion and determination led him to the craft brewing business.

Burford soon decided to leave the computer industry and start becoming part of what was emerging as Long Island's craft brewing landscape. Burford continued to home-brew but also began brewing at Long Island Brewing Co. in Jericho and eventually became the brewmaster at Cobblestone Brewery in Huntington, where he met Peter Cotter, his Blue Point Brewing Co. co-owner.

Also in 1991, in the lunchroom of Kedco Wine Storage Systems in Farmingdale, Dave and Ken Windt (who helped run the business with their parents) hosted their first beer club meeting, and Paumonok United Brewers (PUB) came to be. Deinhardt was one of the original members and recalls having brewed his first beer that very day.

He and some others eventually created BEER as an offshoot from that club, and today the club has more than 100 members. Meetings are held on the third Monday of the month at Brickhouse Brewery in Patchogue or John Harvard's Brew House in Lake Grove. Another offshoot club, Long Islanders for Fermentation Enjoyment, or LIFE, is a bit more casual with 20 members. Belson just took over as president this year after home brewer and Hicksville resident Marc Arkind had run the club for nine years. The club meets on the second Monday of the month at Black Forest Brew Haus in Farmingdale.

Aside from hosting those original PUB meetings, the Windts also created one of the few home brewing supply stores on Long Island (others are Arbor Wine and Beer Making Supplies in Islip, Karp's Hardware & Homebrew shop in East Northport and Brewer's Den in Smithtown). Their shop, Brews Brothers at Kedco, has evolved over the years, and they carry all sorts of equipment. A basic starter kit for $67.95 includes a carboy (essentially a plastic water cooler bottle), a bottling pail, racking equipment, hoses, a bottle capper, sanitizers and a hydrometer. Brews Brothers also carries about 20 prepackaged ingredient kits with names like Johnson's Porter and Sparky's Real Ale.

The Windts see lots of repeat home brewing customers, but many have come and gone over the years. "Beer is more of a hobby as opposed to wine, which is more of a lifestyle. People get in and out of it in their lives. Like any hobby, you get into it ankle, knees and then up to your neck." Dave Windt said.

Many customers, however, still bring their brews into the store for Dave and Ken to taste. Ken is a certified beer judge and has a degree in biochemistry. After work hours the brothers take the task of drinking customers' beer very seriously.

"The better the brewer, the more they often don't pay attention to the basics. They forget about the importance of sanitation and get more interested in the recipe formulation and newfangled names for their brew," Dave Windt said.

Sanitation important

Nathaniel Brese, 44, of Farmingdale, who has a doctorate in chemistry and is a national home brew judge, agreed. "There's no reason you can't make a great beer with $20 equipment. It is fun to use bigger equipment, but great beer is all about control and design. Sanitation, however, are rules number one, two and three when it comes to home brewing."

Brese also makes his own brews. In fact, his barley wine (a beer of wine strength) placed number one in the American Homebrewers Association regionals and got him to the nationals. "Judging is a good way to learn and make your own beer better, as well as helping others with their own brews. It's not just about the top ranking," he said.

But for those interested in true competition, the Beer Judge Certification Program is strict about its style guidelines. Each style of beer (23 at present) is awarded points based on five different characteristics: Aroma - fruity, spicy or chocolate. Appearance - color, cloudiness, head, eye appeal. Taste - should balance malt and hops. Mouth feel - characteristics of ingredients. Overall impression.

Brese will be one of the judges again this year on May 16 in St. James at BEER's annual competition, which usually receives 200-300 entries. Burford has also served as a judge for the competition and still enjoys tasting home brews and discovering new flavors. Aside from the 12 taps Burford and Cotter have at any given time at the brewery, the two encourage their brewers to make their own recipes, and they reserve one tap just for those brews.

"Years ago it was unheard of to uses spices like cloves in a beer. As craft beers get to the dinner table, it's natural for people to use these flavors," said Burford, who, with his brewers, is actually working on a coffee-infused beer.

BEER's members are working on a brew project that uses breakfast cereal. The group is being encouraged to work with anything from Froot Loops to All-Bran. "It's a way to have some fun as well as learn some things from other brewers in the group," said Deinhardt. They will also be working on a club brew that will be aged in a barrel normally used for aging bourbon.

Just as with a good wine or any fermentable beverage, the same recipe can yield different flavors over time. Donavan Hall, 40, of Rocky Point, co-founder of Long Island Beer and Malt Enthusiasts (a pub-crawling and beer study club), believes patience and palate preparation are a big part of successful home brewing. "You try and understand what you did in the process, take good notes and a sensory evaluation of the product afterwards," he said.

Every home brew goes through a life cycle, because you are dealing with live yeast cultures that take time to develop. "I've actually had batches go from not so interesting to 'Wow, this is amazing' after two months," said Hall.

Taking it to the next level

Hall is one of the few home brewers on Long Island, along with his friend Mike Voigt, to take his hobby to the next level. The two are getting the federal and state licensing to launch a nanobrewery out of his father's garage in Rocky Point. Hall, who is also a full-time physicist and author of "The Beer Hall Guide to Long Island," won't be brewing 26,000 barrels a year (one barrel equals 31 gallons) as Blue Point did last year, but they do plan to distribute about 60 barrels under the name Rocky Point Artisan Brewers Ltd.

"The nanobrewery [or cottage brewery] concept allows one or a few good craft brewers to spend a few weekends a month brewing batches of beer that can be sold to pubs in their communities. The model isn't one that focuses on eventual growth. The nanobrewer isn't going to quit his day job. They are brewing because they love the process and want to share the results with the people in their neighborhoods," Hall said on his blog, "The Beer Hall" at beer.donavanhall.net .

Paul Dlugokencky, 49, of Centerport, got the federal licensing for his nanobrewery, Blind Bat Brewery Llc, in 2007 and the state license late last spring. He got his beer on shelves in December while still working his full-time job as a supervisor at a publishing center in Melville.

Dlugokencky has a limited local distribution, selling to Big Z Beverage and Shoreline Beverage in Huntington as well as Bellport Beer and Soda in Bellport. He brews seasonally with about 10 gallons a week of Hell Smoke Porter throughout the winter months.

When the weather gets warmer, Dlugokencky will be brewing about 20 gallons a week. They will include Wheatley Hills Weizenbock, Long Island Potato Stout, Old Walt Smoked Whit and Harborfields HefeWeizen.

Keeping it small

Blind Bat Brewery is a one-man operation (Dlugokencky even designs his own labels), and he hopes to someday make a full-time living brewing his own beer. Still, he plans to be much smaller than Blue Point, comparing his business to that of a local bakery.

John Liegey of East Marion, along with his pal Rich Vandenburgh of Southold and Rich's brother, Doug (who lives in New Hampshire), are hoping to open Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. in time for Memorial Day weekend. The three are renovating an old firehouse on Carpenter Street in Greenport, where they will have a tasting room right in front of the production floor. Hall recommended their head brewer, D.J. Swanson, who has worked at John Harvard's and most recently was the head distiller at Long Island Vodka. Liegey and the Vandenburghs also have been receiving lots of advice from Burford and Cotter.

"The best thing about this whole industry is that everyone is very supportive of everyone else. We all just really want to get the message out there that there needs to be more of a variety of good craft beer," said Rich Vandenburgh.

"I don't ever want to become too big where I'm concentrating too much on the business end," said Dlugokencky. "The best part of brewing is being able to share the beer I brew with other people. . . . It's a labor of love, certainly. I don't even mind the cleaning."

Vandenburgh shared the sentiment. "So long as we never lose the passion of doing something fun and it tastes good. Whatever size that brings us to - we will let the gods decide that."

"Every home brewer has the fantasy of opening his own brewery. . . . There's a home brewing community that's definitely connected, something about stirring a boiling pot of wort that brings you back to the brewers of hundreds of years ago," said Brese.

Belson, who made a batch of Dunkelweizen (a dark, wheat beer) specifically to share with his friends for Super Bowl Sunday, concurred. "If I hit the lottery, I'd probably have my own brewery. I passed hobby about a year ago. Now it's a passion."