Backyard brewery

Sure, Joe Duncan could go to the store and pick up his own six-pack, but when he has the spare time, he would rather make his own beer.

The pipeline worker from east Odessa has his own bar in his kitchen, with four taps for white lager, dark lager, oatmeal stout and his current favorite, pale ale.

The brewery is in his shed. It's the size of a living room, with a TV and a reclining chair to match, but the walls have several five-gallon jugs, two refrigerators and one jug full of beer that was still fermenting. Some of the finished stuff went into used soda cylinders, hooked up to bar-style taps sticking out of one of the fridges.

In the other fridge, two more filled five-gallon jugs. One full of mead, the other with "malted bliss."

"That's a barley wine," he said. "That takes a year (to ferment)."

He said he had always wanted to brew his own beer and finally took the hobby up two years ago. Duncan had a friend who started working with some prepackaged beer-brewing kit for amateurs, and while they both toyed with that for a bit, Duncan decided to take it much further.

He insists he does it just as a hobby.

"Does it look cheaper than buying beer?" he asked as he showed the equipment and all the hops and grains that take up half the shed's space.

Gil Van Deventer, the treasurer of the Basin Brewers Homebrew Club that includes people from Odessa and Midland, said he and other homebrewers also make their own to try imitating some of the European beers, which they find a lot more flavorful than the pilsners often found in the bars around almost any town in America.

Budweiser? Miller Light? Michelob?

"We spit on those," Deventer laughed. "We're not too big on them."

Duncan, whose fridge also has a good amount of Coors Light to go around, wasn't as quick to dismiss them.

They both suggested that if you would rather make your own, details are everything. Deventer said the temperature of the water-grain mixture before the yeast is added to it - called the mash - can determine whether the beer comes out dry or sweet, and it's a difference of 145 and about 175 degrees between the two.

Keeping things clean is another absolute must.

Duncan and Deventer both said a small bit of dirt or contamination can pretty much make for really bad beer.

Most importantly, it's a matter of time and patience for Duncan. The "quicker" ales take a minimum of two weeks to ferment to the point where they're drinkable, but he found it's much better when he gives it at least a month. Preparing the beer takes all day.

"You don't say I'm going to make beer today and have it tomorrow," Duncan said.