Every year, in honor of National Homebrew Day, the American Homebrewers Association celebrates on the first Saturday in May with its Big Brew.
May 4 is the designated date this year. And, as always, breweries, homebrew shops and homebrew clubs around America will host brew-on-site and homebrewing education events featuring official Big Brew recipes.
This year’s recipes are TransAtlantic Blonde from Simple Homebrewing and Battlecow Galacticose New England IPA from Providence Brewing Co.
To my mind, those two styles represent the continuum of what’s trending in both the homebrewing and professional brewing communities.
Of course, homebrewers have been a vital part of the history and growth of craft beer. The most famous example is Ken Grossman, who opened a homebrew supply store in downtown Chico, Calif., in 1976, before founding Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in 1980.
Around Atlanta, former homebrewers turned professional brewers are legion. To mark National Homebrew Day, I decided to catch up with two who have made the transition in the past few years.
In late 2016, Mike Castagno stepped into the head brewer’s boots at Twain’s Brewpub in Decatur, bringing with him a wealth of experience as a research chemist, plus a slew of awards as a homebrewer and member the Covert Hops Society homebrew club of Atlanta.
“I started home brewing in 2005,” Castagno said. “I graduated college, got a job with DuPont and, with my first paycheck, I bought a homebrew kit. At the time, I was pretty into craft beer, and brewpubs were the place to go if you wanted to try a bunch of different styles and learn more about beer.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
“One day, I went to Iron Hill Brewery, and it just so happened that there was an AHA rally. I was really impressed that there was a lot of good homebrew and the homebrewers had a lot of good knowledge. I figured, I’m a chemist; I can probably figure out how to do this. And that’s how it all started.”
Like many homebrewers, Castagno dreamed of brewing professionally, but it was years until he got the chance.
“I worked from the perspective of a research chemist and having a pretty good knowledge of engineering and brewing science,” he said. “Originally, the plan was to start my own place. But I didn’t have any business or marketing or sales knowledge, so it never seemed feasible for me to do that all on my own.”
After he joined the team at Twain’s, the biggest challenges for Castagno were gauging what the brewpub customers wanted to drink and making sure there was enough of it in the tanks from day to day.
One of the spring beers to try at Twain’s right now is Germantown Pilsner, a traditional lager Castagno describes as “legit as it can get without actually being made in Germany.”
In late 2017, Todd DiMatteo, homebrewer and former general manager of Brick Store Pub in Decatur, teamed up with some Brick Store owners and employees to create Good Word Brewing & Public House, a brewery restaurant in Duluth’s Parson’s Alley Development.
“I started homebrewing about five years ago,” DiMatteo said. “Once I was hooked, I probably brewed two or three times a week. I was brewing like a maniac. If I’m passionate about something, I’m all in.
“I would go to breweries like Wild Heaven and Three Taverns and brew on their pilot systems. Basically, anyone who would let me in the door, I would go brew with them. I even went to Southern and Creature Comforts in Athens.”
Things changed for DiMatteo in a big way in early 2018, when the head brewer he’d hired to oversee the brewing operation at Good Word suddenly quit and moved back to Canada. DiMatteo was forced to take over.
“At that point, I was mostly doing recipe design with our brewer,” he said. “I would order raw materials, and I would mash in and stuff like that, but I wasn’t really brewing. The first beer I made after he left may have been my least favorite I’ve ever done.
“It’s been over a year, now, and I’ve been at least full-time in the brewery solo. It was really hard. But the last seven or eight months have been a lot easier. Now I’m back to messing with a lot more styles, including fruited sours and hazy IPAs. But I still love making English-style pub beers, and right now we have three saisons on draft.”
Among the current beers brewed by DiMatteo at Good Word, a favorite to try is Donna-Maria, which he describes as a “traditional saison, where the yeast character is the star.”
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