How Beer is Brewed: Brewing Equipment Explained

I was given a video that shows you how to build your own micro-brewery on a budget. In the video Tom Hennessy goes through 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 brewery and where they found the parts. You also hear a few things they say they would not do again, ever.
I was very impressed with Tom's presentation; he has a thorough understanding of the brewing process and how to get things done on a shoestring budget. He not only shows how to build a big brew system on a budget, he also explains how the system 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.
I think anybody who is into craft beer should see this video. It will help you appreciate the process and equipment used to brew beer, including the bottling and labeling process. I have a feeling that anybody who watches this video will have the urge 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 made available again, 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 so many people interested in craft beer, I convinced Tom to revive FrankenBrew. Well, I say I convinced him, he was well aware of the Craft Beer craze and wanted to bring it back on DVD already. FrankenBrew was digitized and converted to DVD and repackaged. The only place that has it at this time is BeerBooks, but I am sure you will be able to find it everywhere soon.

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Johnny Max hosts the podcast BrewCrAzY, the Beer Podcast for those of us who Brew Our Own Damn BEER! For more information on craft beer, go to the source, the FrankenBrew DVD.