From peanut butter ale to mango-ghost beer: A look at SE Iowa's basement brew culture

The pandemic brought many changes to American social norms; one of the least visible is the horde of Boomer Brewers. Thousands of retirement-aged Americans fled to their basements during the isolation years of 2020-22, where they learned to churn out their own beer, foregoing the need to mask up for a trek to the grocery store.

There are more than 8,000 breweries operating in the U.S., according to the American Homebrewers Association, but homebrewing remains popular. The AHA estimates that there are more than 1.1 million active homebrewers in the country.

In 1988, Congress declared the first Saturday in May as National Homebrew Day; that's when the AHA holds its Big Brew competition for homebrewers. Some homies honor traditions and some experiment with flavors, and the local Burlington bunch is no different.

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The Burlington M.O.B.

The Burlington M.O.B. — Makers of Beer — meets nearly every month to discuss and sample each other's beers. Timothy S. Benson said despite stereotypes, nearly half of its members are women.

"Although brewing is thought of as traditionally a man's thing, the women homebrewers at our group know what they're doing," he said.

When the Burlington M.O.B. met recently, the rendezvous was called to order with a "two-minute warning" instead of a last call for alcohol.

That's because those Makers of Beer were standing around at the Lost Duck Brewing Co. in Fort Madison, sampling each others' brews.

Benson, owner of the Lost Duck, the oldest brewpub in Fort Madison, has been pulling taps on Avenue H for 20 years.

"In the early days, they met here the second Sunday of every month," Benson said. "But as breweries, wineries and distilleries in the area grew, they started meeting in different locations around the area, and sometimes they'd meet at somebody's house. Now they meet here three times a year or so."

MOB chieftain Kermit Willis said the organization began in 2006, when a group of Burlington homebrewers got together in their living rooms.

"They ended up coming down to Fort Madison to the most local brewpub (Lost Duck) that existed back then," Willis said. "I happened to be downstairs having a beer and ended up joining them even before I started brewing."

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Willis said the club has between 12 and 20 active, long-running members "most of the time."

"We split our time between here and Parkside Brewing in Burlington," he said. "We changed up our schedule the last couple years to include a trip up to Contrary Brewing in Muscatine."

Willis said the MOB went to a winery this year and will visit the Grange Public House and Brewery in Mount Pleasant next year.

"We meet every month except August; it's hot, so we don't usually have a meeting then," he said.

MOBsters include West Burlington Fire Chief Shaun Ryan and Parkside owner Paul Kay. Willis said there are no Burlington City Council members in the club.

"We kind of steer away from that," he laughed, pointing out that his wife, Bobbie Jo Willis, owns the Cabaret, an Irish pub in Fort Madison. "She knows what religious and political talk can do to an organization. We keep politics out of it."

Bobbie Jo Willis said the main purpose of the MOB is camaraderie.

"Sharing the love of something you like with other people who enjoy the same thing," she said. "It's fun."

A MOB meeting

At the Lost Duck meeting in October, Kermit Willis gave club updates before Jay Kinney of Loveland, Colorado, discussed barrel staves and barrel-making.

Then the fun began: tasting time.

Bobbie Jo Willis brought her Irish Car Bomb Stout to the meeting.

"I'm the one who's always on the edge with the things I make," she said. "I like experimenting with things. I've made peanut butter brown ale."

The Willises' love for craft beer, breweries and travel got them started in homebrewing.

"Pretty much all of our travels anymore are based around breweries and stuff: 'Oh, let's go to Davenport and see what's new,'" Bobbie Jo Willis said.

If it were legally possible, would Benson carry some of their products at the Lost Duck?

"You bet," the publican said.

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Some MOB wetwork

The bible of brew is "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" by AHA founder Charlie Papazian, Lisa and John Jennison Burlington got their copy on sale at Burlington Public Library. John Jennison brought his homebrew "Cellar Groot" to the Lost Duck meeting.

"Groot is a combination of grunt and brute," he said, pointing out that toting a 50-pound carboy full of beer down to the cellar causes a person to grunt in a brutish manner.

"I lug carboys," John Jennison said of his role in the club.

Not all the suds at the meeting were Iowa-made: Lisa Jennison shared beers from a recent trip to Arizona and a sorghum-based Guinness from Africa; sorghum is a gluten-free grain. She also spoke of wild hops she and her husband had discovered in Marshalltown.

"They weren't a part of anything we brewed," she said.

Carol Janosik said her husband, John, names all his beers after friends or family.

"He's got one named after our daughter, Kim," she said. "Scottsdale Blonde."

Daughter Kim lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with her two rescue dogs, Manti and Nigel.

"John wants to get a picture of her with them for the label," Carol Janosik said.

Ghosts and reapers

Alan Bohnenkamp said beer competitions give different ratings to different brews.

"My highest rating is 'It Hardly Sucks At All' because I'm a pessimist," he joked. "I like most beers, but real hoppy beers? Not my thing. I like most mid-range beer ... I like beer!"

Bohnenkamp is adept at making beer with hot peppers.

"The first one I did was a mango-ghost," he said.

The ghost pepper ranks No. 7 at 1,041,427 Scoville Heat Units. The No. 1 hottest pepper is the Carolina Reaper.

"Carolina Reaper is 2 million SHU," Bohnenkamp said. "The Trinidad Scorpion is 1.5, the Ghost is right at a million. When you get down to habaneros, they're like 600,000," he said dismissively.

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He said his mood determines the heat level on any given day.

"One day I'll eat the hottest thing you put in front of me, the next day I can't," he said. "I don't know why, but some days I can just handle it more."

Bohnenkamp can't sell his hot beer even though it would be a hot item.

"I had a hot mango, a hot cherry, a hot raspberry," he said.

A homebrew homeboy

Scot Miller was working a factory job when he was injured in February 2015.

"I had a skid of glass and steel fall on me, and I was crushed," Miller said. "I broke all but three ribs, had 33 spinal fractures, split my pelvis in half, shoved my heart through my diaphragm and collapsed both lungs. And I thought it was all over. I mean, one would think that — wouldn't you?"

Miller started brewing beer the following year.

"It was in that recovery period afterwards, when I was going through therapy. I was looking for something to do that would get my brain engaged and get me through some of the stumbling blocks," Miller said.

A relative was brewing back then, and Miller would go down to visit, sit around a bonfire drinking the guy's beer, and Miller would be sent home with a six-pack.

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"He's the one who taught me, gave me the instructions of how to go about it," Miller said. "He handed me a book and said, 'You might want to read up on some of this stuff' and I did some study, and I went kind of a little deep into it, to the point where I decided that, yeah, I can do just about anything I want to do. So it's time to start playing around."

Miller started creating his own recipes and making his own bits and pieces of brewing equipment.

"I started off doing five-gallon batches," he said. "I now mostly do 10."

These days, Miller has no trouble cranking out the 200 gallons he and his wife, Rhonda, are allowed by Iowa law.

Homebrew homework

The 18th Amendment of 1919 made the sale, production and transportation of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States until 1933, when the 21st Amendment ended prohibition. Homebrewing was legalized by the federal government in 1979, but states still reserved the right to regulate the production of beer and spirits.

Fortunately for Iowans, homebrewing is legal, but transporting it is not. However, homebrewed beer can be removed from the premises for personal use if it isn't sold or traded.

Iowans can brew at home without a permit or state fee. Annual production is limited by federal law to 100 gallons per person, 200 gallons per household if two adults of legal drinking age live in the residence.

But 100 gallons is a lot: That's a little over a quart per day, every day of the year.

How you, too, can brew

The next meeting of the MOB is 4 p.m. Nov. 12 at Parkside Brewing Co., 2601 Madison Ave. in Burlington. Anyone interesting in becoming a homebrewer is invited to stop by and ask questions.

Do these meetings end by shouting, "Cheers!"?

"Nah. We're pretty informal," Kermit Willis said. "We try to help people out; if somebody brings a beer and they have a question about it, we'll taste it, and at no time will we ever say, 'Oh, my God, this is the worst thing I've ever had.' We try to build people as opposed to tearing down, which can happen in a lot of clubs. We try to be nice, relaxed, easygoing."

Visit the Burlington Makers of Beer Facebook page for more information.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Burlington Makers of Beer share homebrewing experience, taste