How Homebrewing Bridged Three Generations

As I write this, a video of me speaking to a woman’s infant daughter is going viral on the internet. It’s nominally about why it’s awesome to be a nerd (spoiler alert: It is), but from my point of view, it’s about being the kind of person I strive to be, and the kind of person I raised my sons to be. The speech I give to baby Violet in the video is a version of something I’ve told my boys their whole lives: Be kind, be honest, be honorable, work hard and always be awesome. Don’t be afraid to love things like manga and Firefly and weird craft beer even though some people around you don’t understand them. Find something you love, and then love it the most that you can.

People who follow me on Twitter know that I’m basically powered by a combination of beer, burritos and Los Angeles Kings Hockey. But the subset of those people, who have been reading my blog at wilwheaton.net since I started it in August 2000, know that nothing in the world is more important to me than my family, and of all the jobs I have, nothing means to more to me than being a father to my boys, Ryan and Nolan.

My son Ryan entered my life when he was 6 and his brother was 4. His biological father spent his entire childhood trying to drive a wedge between us, and only ended up bringing us closer together. When Ryan was 19, he came home from college for a long weekend and asked me to adopt him. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, as we lay on the living room floor next to each other, watching laser stars drift across the ceiling, “that I am who I am because of you. I love the things I love because of you, and even though you’re not my biological father, you are my dad.”

He took a deep breath, and continued. “So I was hoping that you would want to go ahead and make it official. Will you adopt me?”

I blinked back tears, and I said yes. A few months later, we stood in front of a judge, raised our right hands, and made it official. Ryan William Wheaton became my son and heir.

Though it was a challenge for us when he was younger, we are incredibly close now. He lives in another state, but we still talk many times a week, and whenever he’s visiting me and his mom at our house, we do the things we’ve always done together—play tabletop games, watch Korean horror movies, spend too many hours playing Rock Band—but one afternoon in 2011, while we were having a beer together (he was nearly 22 at the time), he suggested we spend the rest of the summer making our own beer.

I had tried homebrewing once when I was about Ryan’s age, with one of those hopped malt kits you could get from the home shopping channel, and it ended … poorly. My memory isn’t entirely clear, but I think the CDC showed up to remove the resulting infection.

I love craft beer, and I love cooking, so over the years I would think about homebrewing again, only to quickly get intimidated by what I remembered was a complex and peril-fraught process. When Ryan suggested that we do this, though, the excitement and joy of doing something together gave me a natural 20 on my Save Versus Fear. Besides, I thought, even if it was a spectacular failure, it would still be something we did together, something we could bond over, and something that would stay with us—success or failure—for the rest of our lives.

“That would be the most awesome father/son activity, ever,” I said. “Plus, we get beer when we’re finished!”

The next morning, we did a little research online, and the entire process actually looked a lot simpler and more straightforward that I remembered it being a million years ago when I was 22. As long as we could follow a recipe and do our fermentation in a place that was temperature controlled, we’d probably be able to make some beer that didn’t suck.

We found a local homebrewing supply store, and went there to get our kit and ingredients. The late afternoon had given way to early evening, but it was still 90 degrees as we parked the car and walked up the sidewalk toward the shop.

“I’m really excited about this,” I said, partially because it was true, and partially because I needed to calm the nerves that were working themselves up. What if they laughed at us when we walked in? What if whoever worked there wasn’t interested in helping a couple of noobs get started? What if I said something stupid and embarrassed my son? “Yep,” Ryan said.

“Yep”? That’s it? “Yep”? Not “Me too, Dad, this will be awesome!” Not “Yeah, I’m really looking forward to this!” Not even, “Don’t embarrass me, dude.” Just “yep.”  OK, Wil, don’t blow this.

We walked into the store. It was cool inside, and smelled delightful from all the different types of grain that were in tubs along the walls. A man sat behind a counter at the far side of the room, reading a computer screen. I took a breath, and decided that it was go time. “Hi,” I said, “I tried homebrewing once about 15 years ago, and it was a disaster. My son’s home for the summer, though, and we wanted to make our own beer together. Can you help us get started?”

He looked up at me, and smiled. “Sure, just give me one minute.” Awesome.

For the next 20 minutes or so, he walked us through the entire process, showing us equipment and ingredients, and explaining in simple and precise terms exactly how the whole thing worked. I’m not entirely sure, but I think this guy could cast Dispel Fear as a free action, because by the time he was done, I felt like I was ready to go home and start brewing right away. “Is there one type of beer that’s more difficult than another?”

“Not really,” he said. “Most of the beers you’re going to make are pretty simple and forgiving. The hardest thing to make, honestly, is something like Budweiser.”

Before I could say, “I said beer,” he continued: “That’s a very pale lager that doesn’t leave much margin for error.”

So they make that shit taste that way on purpose? And it’s difficult? Wow, I learned something today.

“What about a California-style Pale Ale?” I asked, hopefully.

“That’s very easy,” he told us, “it’s one of the most popular styles.” He gave us a recipe to follow, and helped us pick out the various ingredients to make it. Ryan and I gathered up all our individual ingredients, including Caramel 10L, Caramel 40L, and Columbus and Cascade hops. We paid for everything, and I thanked the guy on our way out.

A few days later, Ryan and I made our first beer together. Though it was a simple extract recipe, it took us close to five hours, but we didn’t boil over and everything went according to plan.

We kept careful notes in our brewing journal, including—at Ryan’s insistence—what music we were listening to (Zeppelin I – IV) while we boiled the wort. It’s a silly thing to keep track of, but it amused us to make note of it, and it’s a tradition I’ve carried on with every batch I make (I’m about to start batch #37, the Dead Ringer IPA from Northern Brewer, as soon as I turn this column in. I’m listening to The Clash, because Rudie Can’t Fail, but I digress.)

A few weeks later, Ryan had gone back to school, taking with him 20 bottles of Wheaton’s Own Going To California Pale Ale. When the calendar said it was probably ready, I called him and we opened our first homebrews together, thousands of miles apart.

“This is really great!” he said.

“I’m so proud of us!” I said.

“I can’t wait to come home and make some more,” he said.

“Me too.”

Ryan and I share a lot of the same interests, from science fiction and physics to tabletop games and writing. His brother, Nolan, and I share different interests, like cooking, fitness, philosophy and our shared love of the Los Angeles Kings. Nolan doesn’t drink, and isn’t particularly interested in brewing beer. Ryan and I have shared some wonderful moments on the deck, sipping beer under the stars, and we’ve had a heck of a good time making beer together (our Bavarian HefeWheaton and our No Quarter Honey Sage are standouts).

Those who don’t have children may think it’s a cop-out to say that we love our children differently, that we don’t have a favorite, that each child is special in his or her own way, but what makes being a father so rewarding and such a challenge is precisely that: Each child is different, with different interests and with different needs, with different dreams. The biggest difference between my boys is that Ryan asked me to adopt him, and Nolan isn’t ready for that yet (and may never be), but I love them both as much as I can, because they are both my sons in every way that matters, regardless of their last names.

My brother and parents live very far in the North, past Winterfell and almost to The Wall, so I don’t see them very often. When my brother comes to visit, though, we usually make some beer together, and I give him whatever I have in bottles to take home. The last time he visited, he couldn’t take the Pale Ale I gave him, so he gave it to our father, who was in town for business. When I saw my dad a few days after my brother left, he told me that he’d had my beer, and he loved it. He wanted to know how I made it, and what else I was making. I love my dad, but we’ve never been as close as I hoped we’d be, so when he took an interest in something I loved, and wanted to come to my house to try the different homebrews I had in my beer fridge, it made me feel a type of special I never really felt when I was a kid.

I didn’t need homebrewing and a love of craft beer to bring my son and me closer together, but because he suggested we make Wheaton’s Own Going To California Pale Ale, he ended up giving me the best Father’s Day gift of all time: something that brought me closer to my own dad.

I’m 40, and my son is 23, and it feels like I was just dropping him off at first grade. Life moves pretty fast, Ferris Bueller said, and I agree. Cherish the moments you have with the people you love. If you’re lucky enough to spend this Father’s Day with your father and your son, grab a beer (or a root beer, which can also be easily homebrewed), and spend some time together enjoying it; you’ll be glad you did.

A Beer Fit for A Dad: More Stories of Beer Bridging Generations

“Being a new dad myself, my almost-2-year-old son loves brew days. He carries around a 2-gallon pot and participates in stirring the mash. Of course, we are safe when the burner is on and his pot is never used in the actual brew, but whenever we go outside on the weekend he runs to the ‘tool room’ (what he calls the garage) and points at the refrigerator used as a fermentation chamber and repeats “this? this? this?” until we are all set up.” —Matt Humbard, Hyattsville, Maryland

“My dad has helped me brew several batches at our home in North Carolina. They live in Alabama, where homebrewing [was] still illegal and mailing beer [would have gotten] get you five to 10 years. He’s had some of my other batches, but not one we’ve done together. He’s always been excited to brew with me, and I hope to teach him the science and joy of homebrewing. The one thing he always does when visiting is bring cases of brown Grolsch bottles—and it’s not one even of his favorite brews. So now, when I share my homebrew with friends, I’m proud to give a brew in an awesome bottle, courtesy of my dad.” —Andrew Small, Wilson, North Carolina

“First time in DC I was 16 and my dad brought me. Got room service and had my first craft beer: SamAdams. Unforgettable.” —BeerAdvocate columnist Andy Crouch, via Twitter

“Last year, [my dad] was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. … On August 17th, my mother came in and said that Dad was not doing well. We all went to his bedside. He could not speak, barely could lift his arms but was trying to get something out. We tried to finish the partial syllables. Gave him a pen. He just didn’t have the strength to get it out. Finally, it seemed to me he was saying ‘beer.’ I laughed and asked him if he wanted a beer. His eyes lit up and he shook his head yes. I ran to the garage, kegerator now loaded with a fresh log of Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, poured two red Solo cups to the top and went back to his bedside. Seeing he didn’t have the strength to lift the cup, we gave it to him with a straw. My father couldn’t utter a single word that morning, but he sucked down two-thirds of a 16-ounce cup through a straw in no time flat. … He passed away two days later. I still have the barrel cap hanging over the kegerator.” —Edward Vaccaro, Middletown, Connecticut

“My father and I routinely make each other care packages of beer that we buy in order to try everything we can. We both live in New York, but I travel quite a bit and am always getting stuff that he might not be able to get. I just recently started trading and he loved the idea so much that HE started trading with business connections and relatives from other states. We also homebrew together and he is working on building an entire brewhouse on his property so that we can brew year-round, in a building rather than standing outside or using his kitchen stove.” —Zebadiah Pagerie, Oneonta, New York

“My dad and I have always been close, but if we have to talk to each other on the phone, an eavesdropper would cringe at the awkwardness. So when I received a call from him last month, I was surprised. My first thought was, Who died?! Turned out no one was dead. Instead he started chatting with me about my brew. I recently started brewing at home, and he was checking in to see how it was going. Before I knew it, we were talking about fermentation, temperature, CO2, etc. We spent an hour discussing beer. Holy hell, two of the most awkward conversationalists brought together by a common bond: beer. I love my dad, and we love our beer.” —Meg Schreiner, Olathe, Kansas ■