Home-Brewed Without the Home

Beverly Wells is a 74-year-old faithful Miller beer drinker, and until recently, the closest she had come to brewing was making homemade coffee liqueur.

But on a recent afternoon, at a small brewery inside a Huntington Beach industrial park at Heil Avenue and Gothard Street, Wells was carefully weighing grains and stirring malts and honey into a copper brewing kettle. In just two hours, she had mixed up a 5-gallon batch of Red Hawk Ale -- twice as potent as Miller in alcohol content with three times the flavor.

“I used to call my grandson a beer snob because he drank all this fancy beer,” Wells said. “Now I guess I’m a beer snob too. I guess you never stop learning.”

Wells fit right in with the lively crowd at BrewBakers, the Southland’s only business establishment where the public can brew beer. As his customers waited for their concoctions to heat up, owner Dennis Midden joked, offered advice and poured samples of the brewery’s latest batch.

“The interaction between brewers and Dennis’ personality is what makes this place fun,” said Bryan Nim of Buena Park, who was bottling six cases of brown ale with his wife, Vicky. “You can tell Dennis is a guy who really loves his job.”

It wasn’t long ago that Midden had half a dozen local competitors in the brew-on-premise market. As the craft-beer movement exploded in the early 1990s and people began to acquire a taste for stronger, heartier beer, self-brew businesses popped up all over the country. By 2000, there were about 75 in the United States, according to beer industry officials.

Tom Dalldorf, publisher of Celebrator beer magazine, said brew-on-premise locations were particularly attractive to home brewers who tired of making small batches of beer in their garages and then having to clean up after themselves.

“Home brewing can be a messy and smelly undertaking,” Dalldorf said. “One sure way to [upset] the old lady was to have a boil-over on the stove with the kettle. It’s nice to be able to go into someone else’s place, make a mess and have them clean it up.”

But while the craft-beer market continues to grow -- by 7% each of the last two years, according to the Colorado-based Brewers Assn. -- brew-on-premise businesses have struggled. Dalldorf estimates only about 15 remain nationwide.

“A lot of people jumped on brew-your-own places as a way of making money,” Dalldorf said. “They didn’t realize how hands-on it was. You’re basically walking people through the process the whole way.”

Midden acknowledges that keeping BrewBakers afloat has been a struggle.

“We’ve been in business the last nine years. Only the last two years have been good,” he said.

“I guess I had a little more determination than the other guys.”

At BrewBakers, the brewing begins when the customer picks a recipe. BrewBakers has more than 100 to choose from, including lagers, pale ales, stouts and even specialty beers such as barley wines. Brewers can also use an original recipe.

But in order to choose the perfect recipe, you have to find the perfect beer, which involves a little sampling. The initial beer-making process takes about two hours and is overseen by Midden and Ian McCall, Midden’s assistant.

After the beer has been in a fermentation tank for two weeks, the customer returns to bottle and label it. BrewBakers prints labels designed by the brewer -- there are also dozens of house labels to choose from.

If the brewer doesn’t approve of his or her concoction, Midden allows a do-over.

“They can brew again or take some beer that somebody else made,” Midden said. “That’s the good thing about beer: We can always move it.”

On Thursdays, customers can brew a case of beer for $35. All other days, a two-hour session comes with a three-case minimum for $102. The nearly nonstop brewing gives walk-in customers more than 30 varieties of bottled BrewBakers’ beer to buy, much of it left behind by previous brewers.

Not all of the brewing is done by adults. While the adults are brewing beer, kids can brew root beer and make their own pizza or pretzels.

The Nims, who own real estate and mortgage companies, plan to give clients a 22-ounce bottle of Mainstreet Brown Ale for Christmas. A family picture served as the label.

“Beer’s not an ordinary gift, like chocolate or a mug,” said Vicky Nim. “People will remember who gave them a personalized bottle of beer.”

Wells, the 74-year-old, settled on a label more appropriate for a newly proclaimed beer snob whose new motto is “Drink Less and Drink Better.”

It read: “Mine.”