Beer and Bonding
When you ask a member of BASH whether brewing beer at home was an art or a science, they answer, “Yes.” Members of the Butler Area Society of Home Brewers attended the recent Mars Brew Fest to hand out samples of their handiwork and answer questions.
Wes Henkler of Elwood City, who's been a member since 2011, said developing friendships was just as important as perfecting a recipe for a home brewed India Pale Ale or IPA.
Hunker said, “I think I saw it (BASH) on Facebook. Originally, I said, 'Hey can I come to a meeting?' They said 'Anyone can come to a meeting.'”
Ken Scott said he went to a beer event at the Days Inn in January 2009 “and I've been going ever since.”
Scott said BASH has about 20 hardcore members that meet once a month at different venues around the county.
According to Scott, the group's meetings are fairly informal affairs where members get together to socialize and compare brewing tips and recipes.
Sean Guesman of Mars has been a member of BASH for eight years has had Scott for a mentor for even longer.
“Ken Scott was my ultimate Frisbee coach in high school,” Guesman said. “When I became of age, I asked him to guide my path in beer. He was my coach in high school and now he's coaching me in beer. I'm still learning.”
That learning process and experimenting with ingredients and techniques as well as a successful end product, is part of the allure of home brewing, society members said.Compiling recipes and trying different ingredients in the brews can lead to some really great beers.Gerry Sapp of Evans City has been a BASH member for nearly six years but has been making his own beer off and on for 10 years.“When I turned 21, my dad got me a craft kit for Christmas,” said Sapp. He started brewing outside on the porch, but he's gone beyond kit ingredients to getting his own barley malt from CNC Malt based in the old Clearfield Township Elementary School in Clearfield Township.Right now, he's pretty happy with his lime amber ale that adds the fruit and lime zest to the brewing process.“I like to drink hoppy beers, so I make a lot of those,” he said.Sapp gets some assistance in his beer making from his wife, Andrea, whose culinary background dovetails with her husband's beer making.
Andrea Sapp said products of their garden often find their way into the brewing process.She said, “it depends on what we have for herbs in the garden. We've used lemon verbena, basil in fruit. When the local peaches come out, we make peach beer.”Guesman said when he brews something he especially enjoys he'll copy down the recipe for future use.“In my recipe development I did a lot of research online and pick and choose to see how it turns out, keep the recipes that I like,” he said.It's this DIY attitude that got most of the BASH members into their beer-making hobby.“I couldn't find a good brown ale. The first brown ale I made was not that good,” said Hunkler.But it's also a gathering of kindred souls as much as comparing fermentation rates.Gregg Worley of Youngstown, Ohio, was helping out at the Brew Fest. He said he knew Ken Scott after meeting him at a Harmony beer event years ago.“It's a great community of people,” he said.
