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mmmmm…beer

Because we’re in advertising, beer just happened to come to mind as something to blog about. Which is why we recently caught up with our Director of Broadcast Production, Greg Simos, between shoots to chat with him about his obsession of home brewing beer. The following is a transcript of that conversation.

bma: How did you start brewing your own beer?

gs: Simply put…boredom. I got into home brewing about 16 years ago, right after I moved from Salt Lake City to Charlotte. I didn’t know many people in Charlotte, so my weekends were pretty open. There was a homebrew store about 5 blocks from my apartment and I decided to go in and see what it was all about.  Next thing I know, I’m in my one-bedroom apartment with a huge pot of boiling beer on the stove wondering if the stench would ever clear out enough for me to get my deposit back. But that first batch didn’t taste much like the Heineken clone I was trying to make – in fact, it didn’t taste much like beer at all. It tasted more like a pureed welcome mat.

bma: So what kept you going?

gs: I met a guy who owned a post house who also brewed.  He had been doing it for a while and he taught me some of the finer points of the hobby.  His facility was about a half mile from Panther Stadium, so on game days we would brew beer in his parking lot and have some awesome tailgates and then walk to the stadium to watch the Panthers lose. The beer got better as the Panthers got better.  Now the beer continues to get better even as the Panthers get worse.

bma: So why brew your own instead of buying it?

gs: There are some great microbrews out there today, and I still buy my favorites, but for me it goes beyond just drinking good beer. It’s about the process.  Brewing beer is a cross between chemistry and art. I get to mix and match ingredients to come up with something totally unique and 100% my own.  It’s really a creative outlet for me. I think it’s important in this business to be able to get your brain focused on something other than advertising for brief periods of time, otherwise you just wander around trying to get the freecreditreport.com jingle out of your head.

bma: How long does it take to make beer, and do you ever jack up the alcohol content so you can get really hammered?

gs: Actually “cooking” the batch takes about 2 to 3 hours.  That’s the fun part.  I sit on the deck with some good tunes playing and a pitcher of my last batch; stirring the 5 gallons that I’ve got boiling and adding the malts and hops at the correct time. The fermentation time depends on the style of beer I’m making.  IPAs take longer to ferment than Hefeweizens. Lagers take longer than some ales. To be a good home brewer, you have to be very patient. Some batches are done and drinkable in 3 to 4 weeks and others 3 to 4 months.

As for the alcohol content, there’s no dial that I can adjust. It again depends on the style of beer. Some have more sugar content, which creates more alcohol. But I do make a really high alcohol-laced IPA that makes your head spin after about 2 pints. My wife doesn’t let me make that one too often because I always end up sitting on the floor next to the bed in nothing but my underwear, eating fried chicken, rambling on and on about absolutely nothing.

bma: Thanks. Why don’t we just leave it at that.

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