The Beer Brewing Process: Brewing Equipment Explained

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A few months ago I received a video that in basically an instructional video on how to build your own micro-brewery on a budget. The video is hosted by Tom Hennessy and he shows several commercial brew systems from several micro & craft breweries, including his own. These brew systems are not your normal turn-key systems that can cost about a quarter of a million dollars. These systems are built with used tanks from dairies and other places.

The name of the video is FrankenBrew, because the brew systems are made from spare parts and brought to life and some do look like brew monsters. It was great to hear the different brewers talk about how they built their brew systems, where they found the parts and demonstrate how the work. I like the old wooded ore used as a mash paddle. You also hear a few things they say they would not do again, ever.

I was very impressed with Tom's presentation and explanation of the brewing process. He not only shows how to make the system, but he also explains how it works. As a homebrewer I learned quit a few tricks that I can use when brewing. As a beer lover it was great to see and understand what goes into brewing the craft beer I love.

If you are a beer lover you will want to add FrankenBrew to your DVD collection. It will help you understand the process and equipment used to brew beer, including the bottling and labeling process. WARNING! Anybody who watches this video will have strong urges to start their own micro or craft brewery.

The video I had received was on an old VHS tape and it was produced back in 1995. A friend of mine wanted to by a copy of the video on DVD but it was nowhere to be found. He was interested, because he is hoping to build a small brewery over the next year or two. FrankenBrew was not being produced anymore and it had never been on DVD.

This video needed to be revived, so I hunted down Tom Hennessy to ask him about FrankenBrew. I found him up in the mountains as a part-time mountain ranger and of course he was in the middle of building another craft brewery, with a FrankenBrew System. Once brewing gets in your blood, it's there for the rest of your life.

I talked with Tom about the current boom in the Craft Beer industry and the beer markets trends. There is a big shift from the light, tasteless, fizzy water to robust flavorful full bodied beers. And, with the shift there needs to be more breweries that can brew the beer people want.

With the popularity of craft beer Tom and I talked about the need to revive FrankenBrew. He was well aware of the Craft Beer craze and wanted to bring it back on DVD already. In just a few weeks FrankenBrew was digitized and converted to DVD and repackaged. The only place that is selling it so far is BeerBooks, but I am sure you will be able to find it everywhere soon. It is amazing the number of DVD's being sold already. I hope we start seeing FrankenBreweries popping up everywhere!

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