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| SEPTEMBER 27, 2005 | Send
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Brew It Yourself
Student takes ‘forgotten
art’ to make healthy beer, flavored wine at home
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| Photo Illustration: Sara Bookout |
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By Megan
Wright
Contributor to the Shorthorn
Some people stereotype college students
as beer-guzzling drunkards, an image egged on by movies like Animal
House and American Pie.
Business administration senior Joseph Webb doesn’t drink gallons
of beer night after night like the stereotype implies. However,
he brews his own beer and wine.
“It’s fun, it’s interesting,” he said. “It’s
kind of a ‘forgotten art’ type of thing.”
In high school, an indifferent Webb attended a wine tasting party
with his mother and stepfather.
“I was 16 or 17 at the time, so alcohol surprisingly had no
interest to me whatsoever,” he said. “It wasn’t
until I was about 20 that I decided alcohol was cool, and I wanted
to make it.”
When he was a biochemistry major, Webb worked at Warren Laboratories
in Abbott, and his boss challenged him to make healthier beer and
wine.
So Webb went to his parents’ house in New Mexico to learn
how to make wine from his stepfather, who has made award-winning
wine for 22 years.
Webb’s mother, Laurye Tanner, said the three made five flavored
wines: peach, strawberry, bing cherry, merlot and a mead, which
is honey-flavored. She said they used aloe vera from Warren Laboratories
instead of water to make each batch.
When he got back to work, Webb said he succeeded in making a wholesome
beer and wine by using only healthy ingredients, such as the aloe
vera. Since the aloe vera absorbs more nutrients, he said it keeps
the drinker from becoming dehydrated.
“This beer and wine will not give you a hangover,” he
said. “You’d wake up the next morning fine, but you’d
get drunk all the same.”
Since wine is a long process not completed in one weekend, Webb
had to return from Arlington to his parents’ home two more
times to complete the process. Tanner said they bottled the wine
in an estimated 125 bottles on Webb’s last visit.
After they made the alcohol, county laws prohibited its sale in
the laboratories.
“We had two options — throw it away or drink it,”
Webb said. “My boss sent it home with me to give to my frat
brothers.”
His Kappa Alpha Order fraternity brothers, like Jason Nadeau, appreciated
the gift. Nadeau, an accounting junior, said he likes Webb’s
beers and wines better than those from bars.
“I like his, especially his darker beers,” he said.
“The wines are a lot different tasting than you would get
at a bar because his are made out of different fruits, not just
grapes.”
Webb explained that he used actual strawberries to make the strawberry
wine, for example. He said he likes to go to farmers’ markets
and get whatever fruit looks ripe.
Nadeau said this made some of the wines crisp and semi-sweet and
the red wines smooth and rich. He said the beer, which he compares
to Killian’s Irish Red, tastes smooth without a bitter taste.
Webb said his beer tastes like Shiner Bock or a lager, like Bud
Light or Miller Lite.
“A lot of my friends said it tastes like Coors, but because
it was cheaper, they drank it — because it had no hangover,
they drank it,” he said.
Tanner said her son makes a good bottle of wine but has some room
to improve.
“The one thing he’s still learning — and this
is the art of wine making — is his taste of how he wants his
wine to be,” she said. “That’s just something
that everyone does.”
Tanner said every artist, no matter the type of art, needs a mentor
to explain the tricks of the trade. Both she and Webb agree that
his mentor is his stepfather, Carlos.
“He’s the one who taught me everything,” Webb
said. “Most of the stuff he taught me was the process and
the art of it, but most of the history I learned was from reading
books like Beer for Dummies.”
He said he enjoys the history of beer, which traces back to Mesopotamia
when someone accidentally left a pot of grain outside in the rain.
“Some dumb idiot decided to drink it,” he said. “It’s
a bit of history that I find interesting, and I want to continue
doing it.”
Webb said he hasn’t made beer since summer 2004 because he
was living on campus but plans to start brewing again soon. He made
a batch of wine about four months ago after moving out of Kalpana
Chawla Hall.
Besides enjoying the process of making his own beer and wine, Webb
said he saves money.
“It’s easier on my pocket book,” he said. “Beer
is cheap to make. All you’re doing is buying a big bag of
grain, and a 50-pound bag can probably make anywhere from 20 to
40 gallons of light beer.”
At these rates, Webb estimates that a 12-ounce can of his beer might
cost him 25 to 50 cents. A six-pack of Coors Light 12-ounce cans
from 7-Eleven costs $6.29.
While it may save money, the process doesn’t save time. Webb
said beer takes two to three weeks to make. He said wine takes years
before it tastes the best, but all someone has to do is mash up
some fruit, add yeast, seal it up and wait.
“It’s a lot easier than making beer,” he said.
“Beer is a very, very complicated process.”
He said Texas requires no license or permit to make beer, just to
sell it. He said he might consider selling his beer or wine, something
Nadeau thinks Webb could profit from.
“I think he could have a future if he actually put time into
it,” Nadeau said. “If he puts his mind to it, [Webb]
can get it done.”
But for now, Webb said making beer and wine is just a hobby. He
said that doing it, despite what people may ask, has nothing to
do with getting drunk.
“I’ve never got wasted off anything I’ve made,”
he said. “That’d be like asking a culinary student if
it’s just about getting fat.”
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