Its National Home Brew Day today.  For some it’s just another “drink a beer day.”  To me, home brewing is personal and meaningful on many levels.

Home brewing kicked off when Senator Alan Cranston from California sponsored a bill to legalize it in 1978. It was a different time back in 1978.  In these early days of home brewing, all beer was essentially the same; the American Pale Lager, aka Bud, Miller, Schlitz, Hamms, etc.  Homebrewers at that time were motivated because they could brew beer they couldn’t buy in the store.  Today with the plethora of craft beer in many styles, that’s not the main motivation.  It’s more about understanding the process and becoming intimate with something you admire and appreciate.  For a select few, it’s about learning the craft and figuring out if you have the chops to be a pro craft brewer.

On a personal level, it was a shared appreciation of the reds, porters and unusual style beers that I could sometimes find at Trader Joe’s and other specialty California retailers back in the early 1990s that led this girl I was dating to buy me a basic home brewing kit as a birthday gift.  It was then that I knew she was a keeper.  We have been married now for 22 years.

About 5 years ago, my hobby of home brewing had evolved to where I was growing hops in my backyard.  It was after a day of brewing with these freshly picked hops, when it hit me that hops could be brewed in a way to create a flavorful hop water without grains or yeast.  After having friends and family taste this new brew, I knew I was onto something.  After 2 years of trial with many different hop blends and methods, I set out to commercialize what is now the first craft brewed hop water: H2OPS.

So cheers to all my fellow home brewers on this special day.  Raise a glass to Alan Cranston for legalizing it and again for the home brew shop owners who have poured their passion and life savings into providing quality home brewing supplies so that we could innovate and appreciate the wonder of beer.

As famous home brew author Charlie Papazian says:  “Relax, Don’t Worry Have a Home Brew”

Cheers!

Paul Tecker
Founder & Brewer
H2OPS Sparkling Hop Water

H2OPS and the hop drop logo are trademarks of H2OPS LLC.