The ever-expanding constituency of home brewing enthusiasts know the line well, one coined by brew master Charlie Papazian: “Relax, don’t worry—have a home brew.” It’s also what a friend, a home brewer himself, tells me as he pours a glass of his dark beer, but I am worried. The last time I had a home-brewed alcoholic beverage, it came from a bathtub of mangoes stirred with a bit of yeast and sugar, presented as mango wine, but more accurately tasting of rotten mango vinegar. This home brew, though, is fine stuff. It’s a Belgian-style beer with an undercurrent of molasses, and we’re amazed: you made this?

We’re at his place the next week, learning about the mysteries of home brewing, which to me still has the intrigue of moonshine and absinthe. Of course, absinthe is legal these days, as is home brewing (except in Alabama, where’s there’s currently a campaign to “Free the Hops”), but there’s still something vaguely subversive about it. I feel like we should be working in a basement instead of his kitchen, where the doors and windows are wide open. Our friend’s two creations that day, which we help him to prepare by sitting on the couch and drinking home brew, are a tripelbock spiced with orange zest and coriander, and a bourbon chocolate lager. The “tripel” refers to the amount of malt added, three times more than the quantity in a traditional beer. The bourbon chocolate lager is a chocolate lager (no actual chocolate, but chocolate malt substituted for roasted barley in a standard lager) with bourbon-soaked french oak chips added in the final stages of fermentation. It’s an amazingly aromatic combination.

Home brewing is not for the impatient. These beers won’t be ready for months; hence, the homebrewer always has a well-stocked fridge of beer, home-brewed or not. So then, is it really worth the day’s worth of work and long fermentation time to make your own beer? Home brewers, of course, will always tell you yes. “Hawaii’s a graveyard for beers,” said Duane Harens, who won the “Specialty Beer” category at the recent Kona Brewfest Home Brew competition. “A lot of people brew just to get something fresh and quality.”

There’s also the thrill of experimentation and playing with a wide variety of beers that you might not find at the supermarket—the Kona competition has 28 categories, including “Sour Ale,” “Spice, Herb, Vegetable Beer,” “Smoke Flavored and Wood Aged Beer” along with the more traditional lagers and stouts. And home brewing is compellingly cheap. Each batch of supplies costs from $30 to $50, and one batch typically yields 50 12-ounce bottles. Not to mention the wallet-depleting bar time you’re forgoing when you’re at home making beer, usually a 6-hour process. Still, for most home brewers, home brewing doesn’t mean giving up store-bought microbrews, drinks at the bar or even their Primos. It’s just something to add to the mix.

Over at Homebrew in Paradise, Mike Smith, himself a home brewer of 12 years, sees the popularity of home brewing increasing. Based on the traffic he sees in his store, he guesses there are some 250 to 300 home brewers on the island, not accounting for those who purchase their supplies online. “We get young college students up to older guys,” Smith says. “A lot of military guys. And the local community—that’s been picking up over the last few months. I’d say our customer ages are from 21 to 65.” (Interesting to note, it’s technically legal for him to sell to people of all ages, since he’s not selling any actual alcohol.) Business might not be good elsewhere, but Smith is doing all right—selling more home brew starter kits and supplies, in keeping with oft-cited statistics that people drink more when times are tough.

Browsing Homebrew in Paradise may leave the rookie brewer feelinga little clueless. Plastic baggies of white powders, cryptically labelled buckets on the the shelves, clear tubing hung on the wall—all in a warehouse/storage room off Nimitz Highway that looks like the kind of place Bruce Willis might bust up. There’s also the secret, strange language of home brewing: hop plugs, wort, mash, fermentables, racking, adjuncts, Crystal Malt. But to help ease into home brewing, Smith’s there to guide newbies, to show you the difference in taste between crystal malt 20 (like a mild, nutty grain) and crystal malt 120 (sharply bitter like roasted coffee beans). For those who want to start out easy, there are the Bisquicks of homebrew—beer kits with the hops and malt extract already mixed together, for a homebrew that comes together more quickly. In each can with the heft of a 40, there’s a keg of Irish Stout or Australian Pale Ale just begging to be brewed.

General instructions on how to brew seem so simple: dissolve malt extract in boiling water, add hops for seasoning and cool. Add yeast to begin fermentation, and let sit in a fermenter bucket for about two weeks (depending on the type of beer you’re brewing—usually an ale when you’re just beginning). Add a little sugar, transfer the brew into bottles, and in a couple of weeks, they’re ready to drink. The waiting times can be lengthened considerably, like when you’re brewing my friend’s tripelbock. A couple books on homebrewing take you through the specifics. There’s the Bible of home brew—The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, the first (and for years, only) guide, written by Papazian, a nuclear engineer. And then there’s How to Brew, the New Testament to Papazian’s Old Testament, by John Palmer, a metallurgist. The geekiness of the authors’ day jobs is evident at times. That’s the other thing about home brewers. Their beer goggles start to look a lot like chemistry goggles when they’re plotting their next brew, or when they’re at brew-b-ques with fellow home brewers discussing maximum IBU levels and partial boil ratios. But it’s not so serious as nuclear engineering: through it all, they’ll tell you, don’t worry, relax, have a homebrew.

Homebrew in Paradise