Happy Thanksgiving to our readers in the United States! I want to make sure to let everyone know how grateful I am for your encouragement and support over the years, we wouldn’t be where we’re at today without you, which leads me to the topic we’ll be discussing in this edition of Brü’s Views.

As the host of the original Brewing TV, which I watched from the beginning and never missed an episode, Chip Walton is a person I developed an immense amount of respect for, as I appreciated that he seemed less interested in portraying himself the ultimate expert as much as connecting with his audience. After hanging out with Chip and the last couple Homebrew Cons, I realized he was just as cool in real life as he was on screen. So, without a topic in mind, I reached out to him to see if he would be interested in contributing to Brü’s Views. We bounced back and forth on a few topics and eventually whittled our way down to something a little more meta than usual that we both could relate with. A hearty cheers to Chop & Brew’s Chip Walton for sharing his thoughts on homebrewing as more than just a hobby!

We’ve decided to try something new with Brü’s Views where a single contributor shares their perspective on a topic with the guest.

On Homebrewing As More Than Just A Hobby

| CHIP WALTON |

It’s easy to simply say that homebrewing is a hobby I have been doing for about ten years. I have been brewing beer, mead, cider and an occasional wine since 2007. But the truth is that homebrewing is far more than a hobby to me. It’s been a lifestyle that has opened the door to a long list of awesome opportunities and experiences– far beyond liquid in the glass. During that decade, homebrewing has also been a day job, an obsessive multimedia project, a volunteer effort and community service.

I brewed my first batch of beer, a stove-top extract American Brown Ale kit, in 2007 inside an apartment kitchen in Austin, TX. Months before that first brew, I had field produced a story about the homebrewing process for the TV news station I worked for at the time. I remember spending a couple of hours with a cameraman following this nice homebrewer (whose name I shamefully cannot remember) around his home while he brewed a beer. I was impressed and intrigued. Here this guy was, making his own beer the way he wanted to make it, and it tasted really good. The process seemed magical and I knew I wanted to get involved. After the first Brown Ale, I brewed about once a month for the next year or so and befriended a lot of rad Austin ZEALOTS club members.

I moved from Austin to Minneapolis/Saint Paul for work and immediately joined a local club, the Minnesota Homebrewers Association. I started making good friends, some of which are still my best friends to this day. Homebrewing was our connection, the thing that brought us all together. For the next two years, I brewed as much as I could around my oddball overnight shift work hours at another TV news station.

Then something insane happened. Something that changed my life in ways I never could’ve dreamt the first time I poured liquid malt extract into a kettle of warm water. And it blows my mind every time I think back on it.

While working this rough (mentally and physically) overnight shift at a TV station, I had met a handful of people that worked for Northern Brewer Homebrew Supply (NB). At the time, NB had little to no video presence in the homebrew community-– not on YouTube, not on instructional videos or DVDs. During a chance meeting with then NB Chief Operations Officer Jake Keeler, I pitched to him the idea of bringing me on board to take what I knew from my homebrew experiences and apply that to what I had been doing for years in the news industry-– scripting and producing videos/stories. Jake hired me full-time and I became the Video Projects Producer for Northern Brewer-– essentially my dream job: surrounded by homebrewers deeply obsessed with homebrewing, shooting and editing video. Co-producing NB’s Brewing TV webcast with Jake and Michael Dawson gave me the chance to travel the country, visiting with homebrewers and craft brewers, interviewing and enjoying the company of some of the biggest names in both fields.  Back at home, we focused on building NB’s arsenal of instructional videos on YouTube and portfolio of instructional DVDs to accompany beer kits and were made available for sale online. I couldn’t wait to get to work every day.

I was being paid to learn more about homebrewing and doing it alongside some of the most technically amazing homebrewers I’ve ever met. With all of that inspiration, influence, and accessible resources it should come as no surprise that during my years at NB I really stepped up my game as a homebrewer taking on BIAB and all-grain brewing methods, getting deeper into temperature control and manipulation, yeast starters, open fermentation, etc. And it was wild to see the infrastructure of the homebrewing industry from the inside-out. I had never thought about the intensity of sourcing raw materials, contracting for hops, seeking the highest-quality equipment and supplies. It was all very overwhelming.

But homebrewing is not immune to that same thing that can happen with any activity that you love to do for fun and then make it your job. You sort of lose that part of it that you love, and replace it with not-so-fun reality of deadlines, business decisions out of your control, corporate maneuvering, blah blah blah. Hey, that sounds like starting a brewery!

I left Northern Brewer just before Christmas 2012 and started a new job managing social media and multimedia at Summit Brewing Company. Then lo and behold, I found my happy place again. That is to say I got my homebrew groove back. Homebrewing wasn’t work, it was something I chose and wanted to do. I also started my own homebrewing/cooking webshow, Chop & Brew. No longer a part of my day job, this webshow was/is produced out of my home (and homes of homies) purely out of my passion for homebrewing and home cooking. I had a sense that there was a huge Brewing TV fan base all over the country – and the world (thanks, Internet!) – that I could not let down. I continue to produce the show as much out of a sense of obligation to those supporters as for my own creative outlet and personal challenge.

In 2015, I was honored to be elected to the American Homebrewers Association Governing Committee. To this post, I try to bring the perspective of not only myself (as a hobbyist, a former industry operative, and documentarian), but also the input I gather from fans of Chop & Brew via social media, e-mails, and in-person conversations. I feel it is important that the AHA continues to provide information and advocacy for homebrewers. I am pleased to do what I can in volunteering for the organization as we look to the future.

There are nights I come home from a full day of work, edit a Chop & Brew video for a few more hours, answer fan e-mails, pack a few merch orders… and I stop and ask myself, “How in the hell did I get here?” The answer: homebrewing. From that first brew in Austin, TX to the hard ciders and Saison fermenting happily in my house right now. From the magical days of innovation and adventure at Northern Brewer/Brewing TV to keeping the spirit alive with Chop & Brew. It’s always been about the quest for brewing good beer at home and sharing it with others– whether in person by the pint or by the power of video on a screen. When certain numbers show that homebrewing (as an activity and a product/raw materials category) is on the decline in the United States, I find it worth protecting and preserving. 

| MARSHALL |

I never intended for homebrewing to be anything more than just a hobby. Like most, I went through a period of fantasizing about going pro, but the reality of what it takes to build a commercial brewery grounded me. And anyway, what I enjoyed so much about homebrewing was being able to make what I wanted when I wanted in whatever way I wanted. More than anything, though, it was the community of fellow homebrewers that kept my fire lit, whether in person or online, I’d finally discovered a group of people who shared an interest in a common subject as passionately as me. One of these people is a friend of mine who I introduced to the hobby back in 2010, a guy I met at work, started carpooling with, and immediately formed a strong bond with, a bromance of sorts. Over the course of a couple years, we brewed a ton together, talked about ways we might be able to morph our hobby into something more together, engaged in the community together. Everything was great, until it wasn’t– our place of employment was cutting positions and we were given the option to leave or transfer. As a homeowner with a family, I chose to stay put and commute to a different location; my friend, on the other hand, took this opportunity to try something new and ended up moving nearly 200 miles away. This hurt like a motherfucker, far more than I expected. “Together” was gone. After my first few lonely brew days, I realized it wasn’t necessarily the brewing I enjoyed, but the fact I was doing it with my friend, sharing the entire experience with him from design to drinking. To cope with this and stave off the deathly grip of boredom, I turned toward something I’d come to find solace in many times before– science.

A brief aside: I’ve got this unavoidable tendency, annoying as it may be, to over-investigate topics I develop a strong interest in. The same whatever-it-is thing inside me that ultimately forced changes in so many other beliefs I’d held was creeping into my hobby. I noticed it, considered trying to halt it, then decided to let it loose once realizing my questioning couldn’t result in my eternal damnation or annexing from an elite club.

Brülosophy was born.

I started doing emotionless experiments, testing variables I’d mostly come to accept as truth, the sole purpose being to keep me interested while allowing me time to refocus. The combination of both others and myself enjoying what I was doing served to motivate me to keep experimenting and producing content. Gradually, I began to invest more time and energy in the website, adding others to the mix, networking with people I never imagined, and so on to the point this hobby did in fact become something more, which has been oddly difficult for me to accept. These days I write and edit to meet deadlines, spend hours per day responding to reader emails and corresponding with sponsors, manage a (paltry) budget, consider ways to keep this thing afloat without pissing too many people off, deal with people who are pissed off, and so much more. Brülosophy has also opened the door to so many incredible opportunities to do things I never envisioned myself doing. I’ve allowed myself to accept that, for reasons I can’t quite explain, this thing that started out as a coping mechanism has turned into something that brings me more joy than I could ever have imagined.

I don’t believe things happen for a reason, but that we are responsible for making the most out of every situation, shitty as they may be. I’ve this rather unconventional perspective that if I’m happy with where I’m at today, I have every experience in my past, good or bad, to thank for it. Would things be different had my friend chose not to leave town? Indeed, and I’m sure they’d be wonderful, but I’m just as sure I wouldn’t be where I’m at today, and I quite like where I’m at today. Because of that, as odd as it is, a part of me is immensely grateful to my friend for making the decision he did, difficult as it was for me at the time.

That was longer than I planned and I’m left wondering if I even really addressed the topic. Given the uncensored nature of Brü’s Views, I’ll leave it as it is and roll with it.

If you have any thoughts on or would like to share you experience of homebrewing as more than just a hobby, please do so in the comments section below!

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