Home brewing isn't a hobby; it's an obsession

TAMPA

Jeff Gladish holds a beaker of rye India pale ale up to the afternoon sunlight and studies the hydrometer inside. The reading will let him know if this brew is done fermenting after spending a week in his refrigerator.

He's satisfied with what he sees and tastes the beer for final confirmation.

"I like this," he says, transferring the finished product into a keg on his porch.

This isn't his day job. He's a mechanic and owns Maztech, a car repair shop in Seminole Heights, where he lives. But Gladish has been brewing his own beer for 19 years, both competitively and for fun.

He's not alone. Across Tampa Bay, dozens of his brethren boil, ferment and bottle a seemingly endless variety of beer. Their club, Tampa Bay Beer Enthusiasts Enjoying Real Suds, or BEERS, is considered the best in the state.

Home brewers, as they are called, aren't making your typical American lager. They aim to push the limits.

Imagine the oak wood smell of a campfire. Now bottle that, add a little carbonation and you've got smoked beer.

It doesn't end there. Everything from coffee beans to hot peppers to maple syrup can show up in their creative concoctions.

The gathering

The lighting is dim inside Mr. Dunderbak's. Local home brewers pack tables in back. Someone passes out small plastic cups for the beer tasting to follow. At least a dozen of the 40 or so people at this month's meeting have brought beer to share, and they aren't stingy with it. They fill one another's cups; compliments flow easily among first-time brewers and veterans.

Each month the home brewers bring the fruits of their labors to the bar and restaurant inside University Mall where they share secrets on the art of brewing.

The BEERS club has been around since 1990. The first meetings were held at the old Tampa Bay Brewing Co. on Dale Mabry in Carrollwood. When it closed in 1991, the club bounced from venue to venue before landing here.

Dunderbak's owner, James "JB" Ellis, has been a BEERS member since 2003. "I do this because I love it, not because I make any money off it," he said.

In February, the restaurant will move to Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, about 2 miles north of its current location. Ellis plans to dedicate an entire room there to the club's meetings and events.

Ellis stresses that the group is devoted to the craft of brewing, not getting drunk. That devotion has paid off. Members routinely take home high rankings from regional competitions where experts choose the best-tasting beers from among hundreds of styles prepared by home brewers.

BEERS is an eclectic group. Sitting in on a meeting, you might share a pint with a general from the U.S. Special Operations Command or the owner of a local brewing company. For most, it took little to get started: a brew kit and a recipe.

Gladish, for instance, estimates that the last 10-gallon batch of beer he brewed cost him $10 in ingredients. A first-time brewer could get a kit for $100 and enough ingredients to make a 5-gallon batch for $35.

An obsession is born

Gladish's love of home-brewed beer began on a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle in 1990. Back then, he didn't know anything about home brewing. Walking through a market in Seattle, he discovered a home brew shop and decided to take a look inside.

"I bought a kit and then a friend of mine in England sent me another kit, and after that I was hooked."

Over the years Gladish has accumulated numerous medals and trophies for his craft. He is one of three active master judges in Florida and one of only 71 internationally.

To become a master judge, evaluating beers at regional competitions, he had to score 90 out of 100 on a test that includes a written portion and a tasting portion, as well as obtain experience points from competitions. That can take years.

"We like to say it's not just a hobby, it's an obsession," said his wife, Ellen Holte.

She has gotten into it, too ... sort of.

Gladish lost his sense of smell shortly after he started home brewing due to a buildup of polyps in his nose.

"A lot of the first beers I was making had really, really strong aromas," he said. "I was the reigning king of smoked beers for a while, and I think that might have had something to do with it."

Still, Gladish would attend brewing classes that had sections on the aromas and fragrances of beer. Because he couldn't participate, his wife stepped up to the challenge.

"I was basically his nose," she said.

Not a beer drinker herself, Holte learned a lot about the process of brewing through her husband and the classes. Today she's still not the biggest fan of home brew but she fully supports her husband.

"I'm proud of him. I love the big guy," she said.

A taste of fame

The Tampa Bay Brewing Co., now in Centro Ybor, is selling a smoked beer that Gladish invented called Oktoberfest, while supplies last. He won a BEERS contest this year, and the prize was making and having his beer sold there.

On Nov. 14, Gladish and BEERS participated in the Sunshine Challenge, the last competition of the year on the Florida home brewing circuit. According to Beer Advocate magazine, the showdown is the largest home brew competition east of the Mississippi.

BEERS took second in that competition. But those points added with points accumulated from other competitions this year makes BEERS the No. 1 home brew club in the state, according to the Florida Homebrew Circuit board, which is made of members from eligible clubs and competitions.

Gladish also took home two medals for himself: a first place medal for his poblano wit beer, which he named "Poblano Wit I Found in the Closet," and a third place for his pilsner, "Take This Pils and Call Me in the Morning." His pepper beer received an honorable mention for best of show.

"When they have over 300 entries and your beer is the fourth best beer, I think that's pretty cool," he said.

Tristan Wheelock can be reached at twheelock@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3339.