THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 7, 1996 TAG: 9610050129
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY WENDY GROSSMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 102 lines
You'll be able to brew fresh pumpkin beer in time for Halloween, thanks to Ron and Carolyn Walkup.
The couple's gourmet beer and wine-making store, B.A. Brewmeister, opens this month at Providence Square in Virginia Beach. It's perfect for the do-it-yourselfer.
The Walkups have 200 beer recipes for such sudsy concoctions as English bitter, India pale ale, Mexican lager or raspberry and blueberry brews. You can even make ``look-a-like'' brews that resemble Corona, Molson and other popular brands, Ron Walkup says.
``Freaky beers, fruity beers - any beer,'' Ron Walkup, 52, says.
You can also bring in your own recipes to try. And while you're at it, bring the kids, too. They can make sarsaparilla, root beer and birch beer - stuff that doesn't require an ID.
Brew on premises shops had their start in Canada, Walkup says. They first BOPs showed up in the United States in 1994, mainly on the West Coast. There were only a dozen or so in the U.S. just a year ago - the nearest was in Philadelphia. But brew on premises shops have been bubbling up all over the country since.
``It's just like any other hobby - model railroading, quilting or anything like that,'' Ron Walkup says. ``It's a non-stressful creative outlet for people. You can deviate from the recipe and be creative in making your labels.''
The Walkups wanted to make their brewery the first of its kind in Virginia - but when they went to get a building permit last May, they found that, although the state has no problem with gourmet breweries, the City of Virginia Beach didn't include them in retail zoning codes.
The city amended the beverage manufacturing ordinance last month, and the Walkups just brewed their first batch. They'll be the third gourmet brewery in the state - one opened in Old Town, Alexandria, last June and another in downtown Charlottesville more recently.
Before last year the Walkups had never brewed their own beer. They'd always just drank it. One day they picked up a home brew kit and made their own British ale.
``It was delicious,'' says Carolyn Walkup, 47, the ``big'' beer drinker in the family. The five gallons didn't last very long, her husband says. She wanted to make more, but discovered one of the sobering facts about beer making. It's messy. Real messy. Plus, she didn't have pots big enough to make a substantial batch.
That's a problem most homebrewers have. You have to keep all of the brewing equipment neat and clean or else the beer gets ruined. And not many people can afford the equipment to make quality beer.
``One of the big problems of brewing beer at home is that usually the smallest batch you can make is five gallons - and how many people have a five gallon pot?'' Ron Walkup says. ``You get the biggest pot you can and you brew up a concentrated batch and then dilute it down. You're doing a whole lot of scrubbing and pouring.''
Some homebrewers have spilled yeast and watched it spread into nicks and cranny's leaving their entire basement with a yeast infection. At B.A. Brewmeister, you brew, they clean up.
When a customer enters the peach and green store, walls lined with pictures of Irish pubs, they flip through the recipes, select one and brew it in one of the six 15-gallon stainless steel kettles.
The amateur brewer receives a white kitchen egg-timer and starts cooking up the wort - the unfermented beer without the yeast in it. Timer and recipe in hand he stirs in the four main ingredients: grains, water, hops and yeast.
``It's like making a cake,'' Ron Walkup says.
After an hour, the boiling grain smells like fresh baked bread.
The brewer turns the kettle's lever and the wort drains out, leaving the spent hop - the flower that adds the bitter flavor to beer.
The wort slides down a pipe, is chilled and then poured into a 15-gallon plastic keg. The brewer pours in some liquid yeast, screws on the cap and then rolls the keg into the 68-degree fermentation room.
The beer sits for eight to 10 days while the carbon dioxide is taken out and the yeast changes the sugar into alcohol. Then it's moved into the 30-degree cold room where the fermentation is slowed down.
The customer comes back two weeks later, spends half an hour filtering and carbonating his 15 gallons of beer. Then he bottles it and takes it home. The Walkups legally cannot finish the beer and bottle it for you or take a call-in order. They just sell the ingredients and lend a helping hand.
Folks can bring in their favorite picture and scan it onto the label of their beer, customizing their own ``brand'' in standard 12 and 22-ounce bottles.
Or, you can get an amber 2 1/2-gallon ``party pig.''
``It looks like a piggy bank,'' Ron Walkup says. ``You know how you buy wine in a box? You put your beer in the party pig.''
For about $125, which includes labeling and bottles, a brewer goes home with about six cases of beer - not a bad deal since in the stores beer sells between $3 and $7 for a six-pack.
There's only one thing you can't do with your beer at the store. Drink it. ``It's not a place where people come to get smashed,'' Ron Walkup says.
The only alcohol you can get are two-ounce samples of beer and one-ounce samples of wine. It's tasty. And it's fun, Walkup says. ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
[Color Photos]
BILL TIERNAN photos
The Virginian-Pilot
[Carolyn Walkup...]
[Ron Walkup...]
[Bill Mathews...]
KEYWORDS: BEER BREWERY by CNB