Blake Ernst’s friend delivered pizza to the home of New Belgium Brewing’s founders in 1995. His buddy came back with a new hobby for them to try.
Many messes and almost 30 years later, Ernst, of Fort Collins, is more serious about making his own beer than ever. He brews about once a month and even reworked his three-car garage to make room for a full homebrewing setup. He’s also the vice president of the Weiz Guys Homebrewing Club in Loveland and helps judge at local homebrew competitions.
“I enjoy everything about homebrewing,” says the real estate appraiser. “Making beer, the process, competitions, judging. I sometimes feel like I missed my calling.”
Homebrewing can be a great football season hobby since there is plenty of downtime during the process, or it can be an elevated art form that taps into an entire community of like-minded enthusiasts. Take for example friends Aaron Geiser, of Wellington, and Brandon Shaw, of Windsor. Geiser began homebrewing with an approximate $150 investment in 2014 and introduced Shaw to the hobby in 2015. Shaw’s initial investment was about $3,500.
“I was hooked immediately,” Shaw says.
The two are going professional with a brand-new brewery, Silhouette Brewing, that plans to begin guest brewing at Verboten Brewing North in Fort Collins this fall (full disclosure, this writer is also the owner of Verboten Brewing).
Aaron’s current system
Finding success
Homebrewing success is largely in the process (see the sidebar on the following page), says Ernst, who enjoys IPAs and malty beer styles such as the classic brown ale. He does warn newbies that brewing a good beer takes time and patience—and a lot of cleaning.
Homebrewers who find they enjoy the process and want to get more serious about their brews can join one of several local homebrew clubs in Northern Colorado. These clubs focus on various aspects of the homebrewing process and are a great way to take the hobby from beginner to advanced.
Ernst and Jon Schiller, the current president of Weiz Guys, joined the homebrew club in 2019 and 2017, respectively. Though homebrewing remains a hobby for them, they have become seriously invested in it.
Both have professional-quality homebrew setups with kettles, mash tuns, fermenters and glycol units, all small-scale sizes of the equipment professional brewers use. While Ernst dedicated a garage bay to his hobby, Schiller devoted his basement to it with a brewing area and a bar.
Upgraded equipment can make the homebrewing process smoother, increase precision and allow for easier cleanup. Professional homebrew systems range from $2,000 to well over $6,000, though cheaper startup systems can be easily pieced together. There is plenty of used equipment available on Facebook Marketplace and other resale sites, Schiller says.
A little competition
Ernst and Schiller are both judges with the Beer Judge Certification Program, so they’re able to score not only homebrew competitions but also professional competitions if they choose to do so. That allows them to rub elbows with a range of professional craft beer brewers.
Entering homebrews into local and national competitions garners feedback from trained judges, which in turn helps many homebrewers refine their skills.
After brewing for a few years, Geiser entered his first homebrew competition in 2020. It was a game-changer for him.
“When we started getting feedback from our entries, our scores started going up,” he says. Geiser and Shaw entered their own recipes into competitions but shared the feedback with each other to refine their brews.
It took a while before the two found material success in those competitions. “We had to check our egos,” says Shaw, who recounts the 20-30 entries they did before either one took home a medal.
Those competitions “changed how we brew beer,” Shaw says. “We began to brew to a specific style of beer. Before, we were just throwing stuff in. The competitions made us understand beer and beer styles better.”
Once Geiser and Shaw earned a medal, they took it as a sign that they were ready to open their own place. They shopped around for a brewery to buy and came close a couple of times, but they ultimately decided to go the route of gypsy brewing at a local brewery. Now they rent space at Verboten Brewing North and will brew a couple of times a month. Soon Silhouette beers will be available at Verboten and beer-centric bars across the Front Range.
Shaw and Geiser plan to keep their day jobs for now and ease into professional brewing, but they feel that Northern Colorado is the best place to cut their teeth.
“The bar is set so high here,” Geiser says. “People here really know beer.”
Homebrewing Basics
Prospective homebrewers can try the hobby for as little as $50 with a homebrew starter kit, available online or at Brew Fort Homebrew & Winemaking Supply, a homebrew shop that opened in Fort Collins last year. The kit provides a plastic fermenter, a recipe kit with all the ingredients and simple, step-by-step instructions.
Beyond the starter kit, basic homebrew equipment can be as simple as a 2-gallon pot, a burner and an insulated cooler, totaling less than $100 for the initial investment. Homebrew recipes are easily available online or in a Zymurgy homebrewing magazine.
All-grain brewing goes beyond the starter kit and gives brewers creative control of their recipes, allowing them to select the exact grains they want to use, from pale-colored base malts to intensely flavored, darkly roasted malts. It takes longer to brew than a starter kit, but when done right, it can produce beer that is more along the lines of what professionals produce.
The brewing process is much like steeping tea on a large scale. A recipe generally takes about six hours from the initial boil and steeping the grains to cooling and placing the tea (or wort, as it is called) into the fermenter. Once the wort is cool enough to place in the fermenter, the brewer adds the yeast and lets the concoction ferment for about a week and a half to two weeks, watching it closely to monitor the progress of the yeast and add any additional flavoring agents.
After fermentation, it is time for the beer to be bottled or kegged and, finally, enjoyed with good friends.
Homebrewing Resource Guide
Local homebrew clubs for learning and social interaction:
Weiz Guys Homebrewing Club
Loveland, weizguys.com
Liquid Poets
Fort Collins, liquidpoets.com
Wellington Wort Wolves
facebook.com/wellingtonwortwolves
Brewnion Colony Homebrew Club Greeley, brewnioncolony.org
Homebrew supply stores:
Brew Fort Homebrew & Winemaking Supply
309 S. Summit View Dr., Unit 1
Fort Collins, brewfort.com
The Brew Hut
15120 E. Hampden Ave., Aurora
thebrewhut.com
MoreBeer, online supply store
morebeer.com
Additional resources:
The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) can help you find a local homebrew club, learn how to make beer and more. They are also the producers of Zymurgy, a homebrewing magazine full of homebrewing tips and recipes. AHA members often get discounts at craft breweries, restaurants, supply stores and more.
The AHA’s Big Brew Day is held on National Homebrew Day and is hosted at local homes and craft breweries across the nation. Held the first Saturday in May, this is a great way to learn from seasoned brewers. Contact your local homebrew club to find out how you can participate.
