Layman Brewing began as a hobby. Over a decade ago, my parents were cleaning out my great grandfather’s cabin in Muscoda when a beer recipe fell out of a photo album. My Dad had heard that home brewing was the “new thing” and asked my brother and I to join him at a local homebrew supply shop for some familial male bonding. Dad and brother soon found better things to do with their time, while all the brewing equipment somehow found its way into my basement and I started experimenting with yeast cultures in my kitchen refrigerator.

Great Granddad was a railroad foreman, a bootlegger, and an amateur brewer. His 1926 beer recipe called for pickle crock fermenters, bread yeast and few other odd things we can’t (and probably shouldn’t be able to) get any more. I tried to stay faithful to the recipe’s rural WI roots though, and after some research and countless experiments, developed the recipe that is now Opasbier. This got me thinking; what other past recipes or techniques could we try? Pretty soon my weekends were spent brewing, bottling or researching brewing techniques.

Layman Brewing takes inspiration from Great Grandpa’s recipe: we like to keep things simple. We aren’t above making a Lawnmower beer or its cold-weather cousin, a Snowblower beer.  And like Great Grandpa, we won’t always follow the rules. Ever try a beer that hasn’t been boiled? Maybe a historic recipe that’s part root beer and real beer? We’ll keep the big boys on tap too, in case you decide it’s Weiser to get a Lite beer.