Homebrew invasion, pt. I: Sam Adams LongShot

October 28, 3:42 PMSF Craft Beer ExaminerBrian Yaeger

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Longshot winner homebrewers, coming to a variety pack near you year next year.

Brian Yaeger

The National Beer Examiner Charlie Papazian did more for homebrewers than just write the how-to book, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. He helped create the American Homebrewers Association (AHA) in 1978. The national organization’s first year membership of 50 people lobbied President Carter to legalize the art of homebrewing, celebrated as National Homebrew Day (a.k.a. “Big Brew”) on the first Saturday of May.

Today, the AHA has well over 600 registered clubs rooted in all 50 states. AHA Director Gary Glass estimates the presence of at least 750,000 active homebrewers in the USA alone. That’s a lot of people for whom making a beer run means stepping into their garage.

Many pioneers of the craft brewing segment today started as homebrewers approximately 30 years ago from Ken Grossman, founder of Sierra Nevada, to Jeff Lebesch, co-founder of New Belgium, to Jim Koch, who in 1984 created the Boston Beer Co., better known as Samuel Adams.

A dozen years later in 1996, Sam Adams launched the LongShot competition, calling on homebrewers around the country to enter their beers. In the end, three winners are selected each year—two regular folks and one Boston Beer homebrewing employee. The winners are announced during the Great American Beer Festival in Denver at a special brunch. (Sweet potato and plantain hash with fontina cheese scrambled eggs with a chimichurri-cumin crème fraische using Sam Adams Imperial White Ale, anyone?) Watch the video embedded below by my new friends Tim and Amy from Here for the Beer to see Mr. Koch explain the competition in detail.

Last year’s winners, chosen from entrants all over the country, both happened to be from the Bay Area. Alex Drobshoff (of Livermore) won for his Traditional Bock and Mike “Tasty” McDole (from Clayton) won for his Double IPA (a Pliny the Elder clone).

This year’s winners were Jeremy White from Sam Adams for his Lemon Pepper Saison, Michael Robinson from Nottingham, NH for his “Old Ben” Old Ale and Ben Miller from Rio Rancho, NM for his “Mile High Barleywine.” While concluding my own homebrewer’s beer odyssey, I had the pleasure of talking to Ben at his homebrewery near Albuquerque. More on this later, but the key element I’d like to impart is the beer he entered was his first ever attempt at brewing a barleywine. Why’d he enter it in such a vaunted competition? “It’s called LongShot.”

When we see large breweries such as Sam Adams bottling and selling homebrewed beer, it is tangible proof that homebrewers continue to lead the craft beer revolution. This year’s winners will go to Boston to have their recipes brewed on a much larger scale for the 2010 LongShot variety pack which, as the name implies, will be available next year.

If you are interested in joining a homebrew club, click here to find the club nearest you.

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© 2009 by Brian Yaeger