By Sam Gugino
High Spirits
Wednesday, January 15, 1997
At age 64, and recently retired, Brielle resident Barbara Hamara was not looking to start a new business. And she certainly wasn't thinking about making beer. But when her daughter JoEllen Bianchi brewed her own beer at a do-it-yourself brewery in Pennsylvania, she and her sister Penny van Doorn convinced their mother that starting a similar facility in New Jersey was a good idea. A year and a half and a quarter of a million dollars later, The Brewer's Apprentice in Freehold is New Jersey's first and only "u-brew-it" or brew-on-premises facility.
But Hamara feels like a frog flattened by a Budweiser truck. "If I'd have known how much trouble it was and how much money it was going to take, I probably wouldn't have done it," Hamara says, echoing the entrepreneur's lament. "It's been a real battle."
The problem with being first, Hamara discovered, is that you're constantly plowing new territory. And it can get a bit thorny. When she went to the state Division of Alcohol Beverage Control to get a license, Hamara was told it was illegal in New Jersey to have a facility where individuals can make their own beer. No insurance company would give her a policy. And construction companies shied away from the job because none had done it before.
Fortunately, the ABC regulations were changed, and on Nov. 26, 1995, Hamara applied for a license. But the she had to wait while the State Police checked her financial background. She waited while her fingerprints were sent to the FBI. She waited for her bank loan to come through. She waited for an approval from the local zoning board. And she waited through three sets of blueprints and three revised bids from the construction company she eventually found.
As if that weren't enough, Hamara, Bianchi and van Doorn had no idea how to brew beer other than Bianchi's brief experience. And before Bianchi and van Doorn could go to brewing school, they got pregnant. Is this how Augie Busch got started?
But with the help of The Brew Store, a Canadian company that sold them the equipment, and some local home brewers, The Brewer's Apprentice opened its doors inauspiciously on Dec. 7.
The "U-Brew" phenomenon began in 1983 as a natural extension of the growing popularity of home beer brewing. But home brewing requires an investment in equipment, time and patience. "About half our customers are home brewers who say, 'This is so much easier'", Bianchi says. "At home it can be an all-day job, but here it takes two hours. And we do all the cleanup."
At The Brewer's Apprentice customers make an appointment for a two-hour brewing session. When the amateur brewers arrive, they're given a book of 70 beer recipes divided into three groups. The Bronze Tap includes lagers, lighter American and European style beers. For example, Steinmadchen Lager is a Bavarian beer similar to St. Pauli Girl or Beck's. The Silver Tap consists of premium style lagers and ales like Royal Brown Ale, which tastes somewhat like Bass Ale. And the Gold Tap is a group of heartier stouts, bocks and porters like Timberline Dry Stout, which is similar to Guinness.
The recipes give brewers all they need to know to get their beer started. First the grain (mostly malted barley but also rice and corn) is ground. Then it's steeped in hot water, drained and boiled with malt extracts and hops. The resulting wort is combined with yeast. That's it.
Over the next two weeks the staff at The Brewer's Apprentice filters and carbonates the beer. When Bill and Betty Brewmaster return, all they have to do is bottle the beer and put on the labels. Labels can be personalized from about 30 available in stock.
The cost for all of this is remarkably low. The Brewer's Apprentice charges $125 for 72 22-ounce bottles of Bronze Tap beers, $135 for Silver Tap beers, and $145 for Gold Tap beers. That's less per bottle than what you'd pay for a lot of microbrews.
"Everyone tells us our prices are too low," Hamara says.
And on top of that, you can get a $10 discount by returning used bottles for a second brewing session. Ten percent discounts are given on the sixth visit and for the fifth referral.
Hamara made her first brewing batch last week. But she doesn't have any plans to drink it. "I'm a diabetic," she says. "I couldn't drink beer if I wanted to."
The Brewer's Apprentice, 179 South St., Freehold. (800) 903-2739.
High Spirits appears each week. Send questions and comments to Sam Gugino,c/o Savor, The Star-Ledger, 1 Star-Ledger Plaza, Newark, N.J., 07102-1200