Making Beer

By Dianne Boate and Robert Meyer

It took a few years of walking and driving by, but at last, Dianne’s curiosity about the intriguing store, Brewcraft of San Francisco on the corner of 17th Avenue and Clement Street in San Francisco, propelled her through the front door.

It is a place of old-fashioned appeal, with its full-size barrels clustered outside on two sides of the corner, holding handsome planters with seasonal lobelia, alyssum, chrysanthemums. On a good day, you will find the owner, Griz Miller, sitting right there with the barrels, watching the world go by. Griz, formerly a psychologist on a Navajo Reservation, looks like Santa Claus with twinkling blue eyes, free-flowing white beard, dressed in his favorite coveralls and colorful beret. He is quick to tell a joke, a story, or all about his favorite thing: beer. And what a lot to learn!

Everything you need is here to make beer, wine, cider, mead, vinegar, so that means 60 barleys and grains, 50 kinds of yeast, bottles caps, brushes, books, buckets, and the beer maker, Billy Bates. This could startle a novice like me, but not to worry. Kits are available in three price ranges (starting at $25) that contain the recipes, the ingredients, and the instructions, and what is even better, with the purchase of a kit you are invited to classes on Mondays at 6 p.m. Wow. Griz says students have low expectations on their first try, but are generally very elated with their first product. I found out that brewing means the cooking process, then comes the fermentation period, the clarification, and finally, the bottling, all taking 30 days until your first sip.
Griz talks you through the whole process, after inviting you to help yourself to the present brew ready for drinking. He passes out written information that is also available on his web site, but where he really catches your attention is his passion about making beer. This is the feeling we have experienced so many times in the world of fine hand-crafted wines and spirits. He invites you to get your own intuitive feel about making beer, probably not that different from flying a plane by the seat of your pants, and offers valuable tips from his years of experience.

The store has been here for ten years. There are nine awards hanging on the walls from the California State Homebrew contest in Sacramento. With Griz taking the lead, neighbors have slowly upgraded their own front yards and gardens and so it is unique that a beer-making establishment could affect the quality of life in the neighborhood. His store is a statement, he said, against the “encroaching plastic- fantastic of the world of super chain stores.” He is strong on individual creation of quality of life. Hand crafting beer is part of that.

Brewcraft of San Francisco, 1555 Clement Street, San Francisco, (415) 751-9338., sfhomebrew.com. Don’t forget a gift certificate might be the solution for the problem people on your gift list!