A few Auburn University students brew more than friendship in their homes. They also brew beer.
Friends Daniel Ballew, senior in microbiology; Scott Gentry, senior in mechanical engineering; Jordan Yarbrough, senior in exercise science and a few other friends started brewing beer in their kitchens several months ago after experimenting with a kit.
They have even named their beer.
"We joke around about having a brewery, calling it the Double Wide Brewing Company because the idea to brew kind of started when we were hanging out in my trailer just talking about it," Gentry said.
The idea fermented among the friends and has developed into a cherished hobby they plan to continue in the future.
Ballew said he started brewing because he enjoys beer and the art form of beer. He said he believes beer is more than just a drink.
"You can do lots of different stuff with it," Ballew said. "You can add different ingredients and get a different taste from those ingredients just depending on how long you boil them for and how long you cook them for. It's just a pretty cool process and a creative process."
Brewing beer can be a two-week process or take as long as a six months depending on the type of beer. However, the process isn't too demanding.
Yarbrough said the brewing process consists of multiple steps.
First, they start by boiling all the ingredients together in a large pot on the stove.
"The boil is basically just like seeping grains and hops as if it were kind of like a tea bag," Gentry said.
After the beer is properly cooked together, it is added to a pot of yeast and the mixture ferments for several weeks.
The beer is then moved onto the secondary fermentation stage and the beer begins to clear up. The beer is finally bottled and stored for further fermentation before consumption.
"Once you bottle, it's basically a waiting game until you can drink it because it has to get that carbonation," Yarbrough said.
Ballew said it's an easily managable hobby.
"It's an involved process at times, but you're not constantly working at it," Ballew said.
Ballew and Yarbrough plan on brewing an oak-aged bourbon coffee stout next, which takes about six months to brew.
Gentry said his favorite home-brewed beer so far is the double IPA, which is a light amber Indian pale ale.
There are also a wide range of beers the friends can make depending on the hops, malts and extracts they choose to boil together.
Yarbrough said they try to be imaginative and add various ingredients that are not in the original recipe.
"The possibilities are endless. You can brew anything, really," Yarbrough said.
However, you have to follow the recipe exactly or risk disaster. Ballew compared the beer brewing process to working in a lab.
"You have to be very precise, and you have to be very clean because sanitation is really important," Ballew said. "If you get an infection right before you bottle, you can have something called a bottle bomb. That's when the caps will shoot off the bottle and beer will go everywhere because of a bacterial infection inside the beer."
Despite the need to be meticulous, the friends enjoy the brewing process and think it is very rewarding.
Gentry said being able to sit back and enjoy the beer after it is completely done is relaxing because of the sense of accomplishment, but that's not why he still brews.
"It fosters friendship, and I've developed a lot more friendships from doing it," Gentry said. "The biggest reason I would say we continued it, or that I personally have continued it, is just for the friendships."
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