lifestyles
Some students are creating their own beers at home. But sometimes the product is a ...
StrangeBREW
ILLUSTRATION BY MATT HOOD
STORY BY JOSH YANCEY
G good beer. Some consider it only the choice between Coors Light in a can or a bottle. For others, however, good beer has a sediment and comes in unlabelled hot
ties. They make beer to their own specifications in their own homes. They can attempt any flavor they want and then enjoy the creation or learn from the mistake. They are beer pioneers.
Home-brewer kits range from the easy — a bag in which a packet of ingredients is mixed with a few quarts of hot water and sealed for several weeks — to the complex — setups consisting of special kettles, tubes and exotic mixtures, the concoction bottled by hand and aged with hourly precision. Brewers using homemade equipment can spend as little as $13 for a batch, and others can spend $300 on bottles, pots and ingredients.
No amount of money, however, will ensure a good beer. That requires practice.
"Our first batch was terrible," said Nate Regier, KU graduate and Lawrence resident. "It tasted like varnish."
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Regier's friend, Bob Oswald, owns Lawrence Brewers Supply, 305 E. Seventh St., Lawrence's only store of its kind. Starting kits are about $40, and mixtures that make 2 1/2 cases of beer are about $15.
For $85, a home brewer can get a deluxe kit that includes a fermenter, the necessary ingredients and a book entitled "How to Brew Beers Like the Ones You Buy."
Regier started brewing in college. The process was one of trial-and-error, a bit luck and a bit skill, he said. Beer's main ingredients are water, hops, malt and yeast. Aspiring home brewers should consult experts on the exact process, but it basically goes like this:
A mixture of water and flavored malt is cooked, cooled, mixed with yeast and sealed in an airtight fermenter. It sits for 10 to 14 days, and the yeast naturally creates alcohol. The brewer then adds corn sugar, bottles the mixture and seals it for two weeks. The sugar creates natural carbonation.
weeks. The sugar cane liqueur is designated.
The result should be a thick, foamy brew that contains about a 1 to 6 percent alcohol. Most commercial beer is 5 percent or less.
Pat Rhodes, KU graduate and Overland Park resident, has brewed beer for more than five years. He picked up the practice in college.
"I knew a guy who brewed," Rhodes said. "One
dog I asked him to show me.
"Ourfirst batch was terrible. It tasted like varnish."
how to do it. My first batch wasn't so good — I sort of burned it — but I've gotten better."
His favorite brew is called "Red Devil Ale." It costs him about $25 to brew three gallons.
"I have a big 8-gallon kettle that I boil the malt in," he said. "You have to sterilize all the equipment for each batch, too, because you can get sick if you don't."
Nate Regler KUgraduate from Lawrence on his first efforts at home brewing
"After about three batches, you get the hang of it," he said. "The hardest part is the bottling, and that really isn't very hard."
A case of sanitized 12 oz. bottles costs about $10. Extra malts, hops and veast for unique flavors can cost $15.
Flavors range from kiwi wheat to mint to ginseng, a mixture of cinnamon and ginger.
Ironically, Regier said, American planners — Budweiser, for example — are the hardest to duplicate.
Home brewing has become more popular in recent years, Regier said. Groups like the American Homebrewers Association, based in Boulder, Colo., represent the
more than one million people who have brewed since home beer brewing was legalized in 1978. Home brewing was illegal before that only because of its omission from laws written after the repealing of Prohibition. It remains illegal in Utah, New Jersey and Georgia. Brewers in other states can make no more than 100 gallons of beer each year, which is probably far more than most want.
Lawrence has its own Brewers Guild, a group passionate about the process. "Almost everyone who gets into it takes it farther than they thought they would." Regier said. "It's a hobby for some, an art form for others."
Josh Junghans / KANSAN
Above is the front view of the Lawrence Brewers Supply store at 305 East Seventh St. The store carries many accessories used to brew and to enjoy beer at home.
Irresistible slippery thriller
Denzel falls into shady life in 'Devil'
Easy Rawlins is a straight-ahead, hardworking kind of guy who wears his mechanic's jacket even when he's not working. He lives alone in a tidy, two-bedroom house along a clean, manicured street. He's proud that he owns his place and likes nothing more than just coming home.
By Patricia Bibby The Associated Press
It's 1948, a time when most of the nation is flourishing after World War II, but Easy has a problem: He's two months behind on his mortgage, and he has been fired from his job at Champion Aircraft.
It's this quiet desperation that sets the stage for the deliciously sexy "Devil in a Blue Dress," a mystery starring Denzel Washington that chronicles one man's descent into the world of blackmail, bribery, graft, corruption and murder.
Carl Franklin, who gave us the thriller "One False Move," directs "Devil," based on Walter Mosley's book.
Set in Los Angeles before graffiti and drugs defaced the streets and ruined
"Devil" opens with Easy sitting peacefully on his porch, pondering his unemployment and the newspaper headlines about the city's mayoral elections. "Like they was going to change my life," he says cynically, not realizing how prophetic his words would become.
neighborhoods and lives, the town that Easy inhabits is vibrantly alive.
Easy's troubles begin when a smarry character, DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore), asks him to find a woman named Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals), who had been romantically linked to one of the mayoral candidates.
It's such a subtle escalation that it's appalling when Albright, gangsters in tow, breaks into Easy's home. Pickling his teeth after eating food from the refrigerator, Albright casually tells Easy, "Come on in"
What makes the film so irresistible is the slippery fashion in which Easy puts himself in such a mess.
For a crisp $100, all Easy has to do is obtain an address. It seems too good to be true. And it is. Within days, two people are dead, and Easy is a suspect.
PAGE 8A
When Easy shows up at one of the candidate's headquarters, he wears an elegant suit and has shed his blue-collar jacket. Effortlessly, he has transformed himself into a no-nonsense, hardball player.
Washington plays the part with breathless confidence. He completely lives in the skin of Easy Rawlins, who starts off as little more than the chump "fella" that his boss calls him when he's firing him but quickly becomes a slick and cunning force.
and leaves by warning, "You're connectable to two murders. You'll do anything I say."
At the end of "Devil in a Blue Dress," all the puzzling plot twists and turns come together to form a clever ending that is as satisfying as watching them unfold.
It is a smart, sly film imbued with the rich subtle tones of a mournful blues saxophone piece, worthy of comparisons to some of the best noir films of decades past.
The Tr1Star Pictures release is rated R. It was produced by Gary Goetzman, with Jonathan Demme and Edward Saxon as executive producers.
Denzel Washington Devilishly dynamite
OCTOBER 4,1995 KU Life
Cultural Calendar
Thursday: Tour du Jour, 12:15 p.m., at the Spencer Museum of Art, Guided Walking Tour of Downtown's Sculpture Exhibit, 12:15 p.m., at City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.
Friday: Tour du Jour, 12:15 p.m., at the Spencer Museum of Art; Film Festival, 7 p.m., at the Granada Theatre, 1020 Massachusetts St.; Poetry Showcase, 8 p.m., at the Lawrence Arts Center, 200 W. Ninth St.
EXHIBITIONS AND LECTURES
Exhibition—"Monumental Proportions," featuring Joe Wally, through Oct. 28 at Kansas City Museum, 3218 Gladstone Blvd., Kansas City, Mo.
Wednesday. Tour du Jour, 12:15 p.m., at the Spencer Museum of Art; Flashlight Walking Tour of Storefront Window displays, 6:30 p.m., at the Eldridge Hotel, 701 Massachusetts St.; The pianist's Showcase, 7:30 p.m., at the Eldridge Hotel, 701 Massachusetts St.
PERFORMANCES
Swarthout Recital Hall Solo Artist Series presents pianist Katherine Collier, 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Swarthout Recital Hall. Tickets $8 and $10.
Kansas City Symphony presents "Main,
Bravo! Cheers for Singles," 8 p.m. Friday
and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at
Lyric Theatre, 11th and Central streets,
Kansas City. Mo. Tickets $14-$32.
Kansas City Symphony will sponsor Night Lights Pops Concert, 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Music Hall, 13th and Central streets, Kansas City, Mo. Tickets $18-$35.
Lawrence Harvest of Arts Association will sponsor the fourth annual Harvest of Arts Festival through Sunday. Events for this week are as follows:
Saturday: Celebration of Cultures, 10 a.m., at Watson Park, Seventh and Kentucky streets; Music in Mural Alley, 12:30 p.m. at Pocket Park, near 722 Massachusetts St.
Sunday: Artisan Fair and Musical Performances, noon, at Watson Park, Seventh and Kentucky streets; Community Drumming Project, 2 p.m., near 826 Massachusetts St.; Poetry Open Mike, 2 p.m., The Java Break, 17 E. Seventh St.; Closing Ceremonies, 6:30 p.m., at Watson Park, Seventh and Kentucky streets.