Craft beer as a family affair

As I've noted several times, my wife is more than supportive of my homebrewing - thank goodness, since it's pretty time-consuming. She's a craft beer lover more generally as well. The other day, when I called as I was leaving work and found that she was home already, she asked what beer I'd like her to grab from the cellar to chill down a bit before I got home. That is love! [As an aside, we enjoyed a couple of bottles of the special bitter I brewed, perfect on a warm, summery evening. Malt-forward with a light bread-crust aroma and flavor, yeast-driven fruitiness, and very crisp hop bitterness, with a soft hop aroma and flavor. Fine carbonation completes the picture. Extremely refreshing; my go-to summertime session beer, as hoped when I brewed it].

So, my wife and I share a passion for great beer. But as Father's Day approaches, I've been thinking: what about our kids? Where do they fit in? No, I'm not talking about kids drinking, as in the Brewed for Tots parody - which I thought was mostly hilarious and just a wee bit scary. But how aware should kids be that their folks are craft beer lovers?

Actually, I think quite aware. This nation sports an uncomfortable combination of a hyper-individualistic, stimulation-seeking, anything goes attitude and pretty significant remnants of puritanism. Together, those clashing values set the stage for some reckless behavior. On top of that, unlike many other countries that have a far lower frequency of alcohol abuse and a lower drinking age, we set our drinking age at 21, marking alcohol as a forbidden fruit and perhaps reducing the opportunities for parents to build alcohol awareness before kids leave home. As we all know, a lot of stupid - and sometimes tragic - behavior ensues. People love to jump into things, and when that involves a hefty dose of rebellion... well, it can all go rather far in a hurry. I wonder if some of that can be avoided - or the risk reduced - by instilling the values of alcohol appreciation and moderation, all the while having fun with cooking and science via homebrewing.

From the start of my homebrewing adventure several months ago, I involved my kids in the process. My son was part of the crazy emergency trip around town to find a big enough pot to brew my first batch in - after I had started and found that the pot I was using was too small. For his trouble, the first batch was named after him, and since it was an English-style brown ale, he associated it with the knights and castles of medieval England, which he's totally in to. He's also been to the homebrew shop with me, and he was fascinated by all of the equipment and ingredient kits. When we go to a good beer store, he points out Stone beers (gotta love the gargoyles!), Rogue Dead Guy Ale (both of my kids think that the name and the label are just hilarious), and Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter (he has learned a lot about the Edmund Fitzgerald disaster and can readily recognize the ship). Together, we're keeping track of the amazing growth and "behavior" of our hop plants, one of which is nearly twice as tall as I am now. He's been amazed at how fast they grow, how they wind themselves around the lines I set up, how they seem to seek out something to climb on, and how their one-way barbs allow them to cling to whatever they can grab. And he knows what hops smell like from homebrewing - "wow, Dad, those smell weird! But kinda good!"

My daughter, who's a couple of years older than her brother, loves to garden and helped me with stringing lines for the hop plants. She's been fascinated by the idea that we put flowers in beer, and that those flowers help preserve it, and that they have these oils in them that impart flavor and aroma. Since she bakes with my wife, who loves to make sourdough bread and other goodies, she has developed a pretty good understanding of yeast. With a bit of explanation from me, she was able to connect the notions of how yeast makes bread rise and how it ferments beer. She also gets the whole sanitation thing - we don't want other critters in the beer! Like her brother, she's had a batch named for her. At her request, my IPA was even named for her favorite doll, becoming Rosie's Rocket No. 1 IPA. She's tasted malt extract (yum! sweet!) and smelled hops (less keen on them than her brother, at least for now), and like her brother, she asks how the sample is on bottling day and how the beer turned out when I crack that first one open.

Interestingly, my kids have no desire to try beer. They have never asked to try it, and they've specifically and spontaneously stated that it's a grown up drink. They understand more than most kids about how it's made and how much work goes into it, and they know that my wife and I appreciate and enjoy it and that I write about it from time to time. They also know that while we drink it frequently, we drink fairly little in a sitting. In fact, they frequently see us take one 12-oz. beer and split it over dinner, pouring it into two wine glasses. They - especially my daughter - understand that there are sugars trapped in those malted grains, and that malted grains are like any sprouting seed. They understand that when a brewer gets those sugars out, yeast cells just love to eat them up, and those critters make bubbles and alcohol. And they know that we add hops for several reasons during and sometimes after the boil. They've watched me stare at an airlock and sniff at it, and they've asked how things are coming along. I think they respect the process and the result, and I think that the respect they have now could pay huge dividends in the future. As with all things to do with beer - and with lots of other subjects - time will tell.

I wish all of my fellow dads a great Father's Day full of joy and fun. Cheers!