DIY - Homebrew

By Andrew

As many of you have begun to notice, it’s starting to get really hot outside.  With temperatures in May reaching the high 20s there is a good chance that the upcoming summer weather will be nice and sticky.  Beating the heat isn’t always easy, but it can be fun and delicious.  The solution that my roommate and I turned to was brewing our own beer!


Beer is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages in the world, with the oldest proven records dating back to ancient Sumeria in 6000BC.  As the world’s societies began move from more nomadic existences to agricultural and more sedentary lifestyles, differing verities of beer were likely first discovered by chance since most cultures’ original brews contain different core grains.  It is clear though that after that first fermented glass that our ancestors figured out that they had discovered something special.  Shortly after its inception, beer was quickly given a position of prominence in religious ceremonies and early healthcare.  It is for its adoption in early medicine though which particularly interests me.

When humanity first began living a more sedentary lifestyle and producing our own crops, we didn’t instantly progress into ‘the good life.’  Contrary to what you would want to believe, we were actually healthier in our hunter gatherer lifestyles than when we first adopted agriculture as a means of subsistence.  This fact is confirmed through the analysis of skeletal stature and bony lesions found in the remains of the first farmers.  The short truth of the matter is that if you put a number of people together with poor sanitation conditions and limited nutritional variety, you will have a breeding ground for illness and disease.  It is for this reason why beer and alcoholic beverages changed the game for healthy hydration. 

As we all know, the process of fermentation produces alcohol and alcohol is still used today to disinfect wounds.  Therefore it goes without saying that if you process your water (likely infected with harmful protozoa and a wide variety of other microscopic baddies) and use it to make beer the resulting mixture would in fact be cleaner than the water that was used to make it.  Thus, an early medical elixir was born.

Health qualities aside, and back to my original tale, in the spirit of DIY my roommate and I decided that it would be a good idea to make our own beer.  After a quick internet search I discovered a place on the Danforth called Fermentations.  After a quick visit to book an appointment and meet the staff we were sold on the idea.  The mixing process was foolproof; we poured the wort into a bucket with a bit of yeast and hops.  Two weeks later we showed up for bottling and to sample the final product.

The result: a delicious and cost competitive brew. 

I would actually highly recommend checking out the nearest homebrew shop in your area and try your hat at becoming a brew master.  Think of it as a summer project in which you can truly enjoy the fruits of your labour.