Patience is just part of home brewing process

Joel Greer and his wife, Christina, had been married three weeks when they moved from Las Vegas to Storrs, Conn., where Christina was to attend graduate school and Joel was to find work with a company that cleaned foreclosed houses.

"We knew absolutely no one in Connecticut. The first people we met were neighbors Chuck Struzynski and his wife, Jill," Joel recalled. "One day, Chuck asked me, 'I'm going to brew; want to come?' "

Joel was a beer drinker, and Struzynski's brew was a homemade craft beer. Joel knew nothing about home brewing, but he soon became fascinated by the beer-making process, even though, as he said, "I hated high school chemistry, but I loved watching the chemistry involved in making beer."

He asked Struzynski for help in learning the craft beer process.

When Joel and Christina returned to Las Vegas in 2011 with their son, Catcher, Joel's own beer brewing equipment — some of it handed down by Struzynski — came with him. The brew setup now has a home on the Greers' patio. Other pieces of the beer-making process are found in a freezer equipped with a temperature regulator and a closet off the kitchen.

Christina knows that her husband is passionate about beer, so she doesn't offer objections to his interest. In fact, she's a fan of her husband's creations, though her own fitness routines tend to dissipate any extra calories. Christina is a cocktail server at the Treasure Island pool and plans on a teaching career when her children — 5-year-old Catcher and 3-year-old Avery — are older. Joel is a server at Andrea's Restaurant at the Wynn.

Joel admits he loves drinking his own beer with friends, sometimes "pushing" the drink just to get their reactions.

"When you brew your own beer," he said, "you are responsible for everything — good or bad. Positive comments are a real high. "

He explained that getting started as a home brewer usually means purchasing kits that provide the ingredients needed for brewing. A kit can include the needed malt extract, yeast and hops. The home brewer can actually get started on a kitchen stove, but knowledge and practice are involved. When Joel is talking to new brewers, he tells them a batch of home-brewed beer may take six weeks to be ready.

"It's a complicated process, but it can all be learned," he said.

Joel made three batches of kit beer before graduating to all-grain beer, in which the brewer chooses the grains for the malt, the yeast, the hops and any other ingredients to be added to the brew.

"I made mistakes along the way," he admitted. "I'm not normally a neat guy, but in making beer, I found that sanitation is important. Your brew can fail if you don't pay attention to cleanliness. I find myself now being very particular about every aspect of beer-making. Also, if you are making beer, you also must have patience."

Joel typically makes a 5-gallon batch of beer each month, and that will make 52 bottles of beer. Yes, he and his friends drink the beer. He also takes samples to Steve Berg, owner of Vegas Homebrew & Winemaking, 5140 W. Charleston Blvd., the store where Joel purchases the ingredients for his beer. He can't say enough about Berg and the help he has given him along the way.

Berg started his own interest in home brewing while living in Oregon and working as a pharmaceutical salesman. Seven years ago, following a divorce, Berg moved to Las Vegas and turned his one-time hobby into a business. At the time, his Vegas Homebrew store was the only one in the Las Vegas Valley offering ingredients for the home brewer and winemaker.

Berg said the key to his success with about 400 area home brewers is being an on-premises owner who definitely wants customers' repeat business. Along with Berg's own advice as a longtime home brewer, his store offers books and magazines on home brewing.

"Craft beer brewers are often willing to share their recipes," he said. "If a customer wants to make a specific kind of beer, I can often locate the recipe in one of the brew magazines."

Berg and Joel recommend a book for home brewers: "The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing," by Charlie Papazian.

Joel said, in terms of recipes, he's often drawn to seasonal beers, but with the upcoming holidays, he's steering away from the many pumpkin beer recipes that are popular. Instead, when View visited him, he showed a batch of his beer in the secondary brewing process that he hopes will turn blood red for Halloween.

How does he get the red color? By adding beets to the brew, he said. He tried a red beer once before, but it turned pink, so this time, he is adding more beets along with (probably) a puree of blackberries and blueberries. He said he will call the beer Hallo-Wheat.

The favorite beer he has made is a strawberry and basil blonde ale called Scarlett, made with an added 2 pounds of strawberries. Joel was so fond of the ale that he entered it in a contest sponsored by the Southern Nevada Ale Fermenters Union, aka SNAFU.

"I didn't win," he said, "but it was a great beer." He added that for home brewers, SNAFU is a great meet-and-greet organization, meeting the second Friday of every month at 7:30 p.m. at Aces & Ales, 3740 Nellis Blvd. Visit snafubrew.com.

Joel said the fact that his last name rhymes with "beer" had nothing to do with his interest in beer-making.