They say everything tastes better when it’s homemade. Students in the Buckeye Brewing club agree.

The newly formed club at Ohio State aims to teach students how to brew their own beer — possibly using OSU laboratory space to create their home brews.

Club president Chris Roe, a third-year in food business management, has been brewing his own beer for four years.

He said that one day, a friend of his “showed up at my door with all the equipment for brewing, and since then I’ve never stopped.”

The first few club meetings will detail the process and technique of home brewing. But Roe wants to gauge how many students will regularly attend meetings before renting laboratory space on campus.

“We’re planning our first actual brew for Winter Quarter,” he said.
In order to brew on campus, students have to be at least 18 years old, Roe said. However, students must be 21 to drink the beer, and OSU will not allow club members to drink in campus facilities.

“If anyone is going to drink the home brew, we’ll have to do it somewhere off-campus,” he said.

Although club won’t provide brewing supplies, officials will make arrangements to help students purchase the right materials, Roe said.
Matt Castle, a third-year in sociology, is joining the club to learn the “ins and outs” of brewing.

“My stepfather brewed for years and I want to learn so I’ll have something in common with him,” he said.

To make their own beer, brewers start by seeping barley and grains in water, producing what is known as a wort. Next, the brewer boils the wort and adds the hops plant.

“The hops are for flavor only,” Roe said. “They do not have anything to do with the fermentation of the alcohol.”

Then they add yeast to the wort, which is poured in a bucket to ferment.

The yeast interacts with the sugars in the wort, which begins fermentation and creates alcohol, Roe said.

The long brewing process can produce mixed results, but Roe said he hopes to get at least one good beer out of the club.

“If we can get all kinds of people together who use different techniques to brew, hopefully we’ll get one good beer out of it,” he said.

The first meeting for Brewing Buckeyes will be at 5 p.m. Nov. 11, in Room 118 at the Parker Food Science and Technology Building.