To make your own beer at SBC, you will make two visits. The first is to brew and the second is to bottle. Brewing visits are usually made by appointment, which is highly recommended. If the brewing schedule allows, we can take walk-in brewers, but there is no guarantee that you can start brewing right away. Bottling visits are strictly by appointment only. You can expect to spend about 3 to 3.5 hours at the brewery brewing your beer and about 2 hours bottling it. You can expect to wait from three to twelve weeks between visits for your beer to ferment and condition. Ales will take from 3 to 6 weeks and lagers from 8 to 12 weeks. An average batch will make about 5 cases of beer. With 24 12 oz bottles per case, that is 120 bottles of beer on the wall!

When you come in to brew, you can sample some beers and talk to one of the brewers about the beer you want to make. You can use one of our recipes as is, modify our recipes to suit your taste, create your own recipe, or try to emulate a commercial beer. Recipes cost from $120 to $180 depending on the brew. Once you have decided on a beer and a specific recipe, you will gather all of the necessary ingredients and get to work on a kettle brewing your beer. While you are brewing, you can have a beer in the pub, play some darts, read, chat with other brewers, or design your personal label. You can create a custom label for your beer. Many of our customers have included custom-labeled beer in their wedding, holiday, birthday, retirement and anniversary celebrations as well as commemorating special events such as Initial Public Offerings, special trips, and parties.

After you brew the beer, you cool it down and pump it into a fermenting keg and add yeast to it. Your fermenting beer is kept in one of our two temperature-controlled rooms where it completes the fermentation process. The first room is maintained at 68 F for the primary fermentation of ales. The second is maintained at 50 F for the primary fermentation of lagers. Once your beer has fermented, usually after 3 to 7 days, we rack the beer into a clean keg and move it to the conditioning room which is maintained at 33 F for lagering as well as cold-conditioning of ales. Once your beer has fermented and conditioned, you return to bottle your beer. When you return, your beer is carbonated and ready to drink. All you have to do is bottle it, take it home, and drink it!

You can bottle your beer in 12 or 22 oz bottles. The first time you come in to bottle, you buy the bottles from us. Five cases of bottles plus caps will cost from $40 to $45. Once you have your bottles, you can reuse them as long as you keep them clean. We have an automatic bottle washer that cleans 24 bottles at a time. If you already have a collection of bottles at home, we're sorry but you can't use them at SBC. This includes bottles with ceramic flip tops. Some used commercial glass bottles have a habit of exploding in our bottling machines, which are counter pressure fillers. Exploding bottles pose a safety threat to you and our staff, so we require you to buy our bottles since we know they have a good safety record and this keeps our operation safe for you and us.

You can also keg your beer. We can rent you a keg and tapping equipment or you can supply your own keg(s). If you bring in your own kegs, please drop them off at the brewery before you want your beer so we can clean and fill the keg(s) and have them ready to go. Cleaning and filling kegs can be labor-intensive, so we do not clean and fill kegs "while-u-wait." You also have the option of kegging some of your beer and bottling the rest. FYI: The only kegs we use are those with ball-lock type fittings or a Sanke fitting. If you are unsure as to how to tell the difference between different fittings, please call the brewery to make sure you have the right type of kegs.

So once you are done, you will be the proud brewer and owner of 5 cases (11.25 gallons) of handcrafted beer! Cheers!

Making Soda

Making your own soda is similar to making your own beer, except there is no fermentation and conditioning time involved. You will come in to brew your soda, about 1 hour maximum. We will chill the soda down and carbonate it. You will return after one week to bottle it. Soda makes slightly larger batches; you can expect to get 6 cases of soda per batch.

Currently, we have a recipe for root beer sweetened solely by honey, no sugar or corn syrup. Root beer making costs about $99, not including bottles or custom labels.