- Well I'm Matt MacQuillan,
and I am a home brewer.
I was lucky enough to win
the home brew competition
here at Bell's this year.
And so today's my day to make
my recipe on their B1 system.
The beer is an Apricot IPA,
so it's a pretty basic ale
recipe, with a variety of hops.
But the story is, a friend of
mine, who lives in town here,
she wanted to learn how
to brew on my system.
She was interested in brewing,
she knew that I brewed,
and had had some of my
beers, and was like,
"Hey, show me how to do it."
So I said, "Fine, you want
to learn, you get to pick
what kind of beer you want to make."
So then she said, "Let's
do something weird
like an apricot IPA,"
so I made up a recipe,
and brewed it, bottled it,
started drinking, and I was like,
oh, this is a pretty decent beer.
You know, I really liked it.
You know, the Bell's Homebrew
Competition came around,
and I ended up, last year
made a beer that wasn't great,
didn't score very well, and I told her,
"I'm going to brew your beer next year,
and we're going to win this thing."
And lo and behold, I
did, I brewed her beer,
and it ended up winning.
There's been a bunch of people like,
"Hey, can I get your recipe
for your Bell's award winning?"
Yeah, heck yeah you can, make it.
I want it to be out there
as much as possible.
It's a good beer, make it.
And enjoy it, you know?
So I woke up several times
during the night with excitement,
and got here early, you know,
I was just very excited.
As a home brewer, one thing
that you always wish is,
"Hey, I'd like to get my beer on tap
at a brewery somewhere."
Not only did I get mine
on tap at a brewery,
I got it on tap at Bell's Brewery,
so the excitement is through the roof.
It's not a huge difference,
on their original system
is basically like a high-tech
home brew situation.
There isn't home brewing
in southwest Michigan
like there is now without Bell's.
Their general store has
made it extremely easy
to buy all the grains,
hops, yeast strains.
In my opinion it's an
awesome hobby, it's very fun.
And if you like to drink
beer, at the end of your hobby
you get to drink beer, and
you can say, "I made that."
And what you love to
hear is somebody else go,
"Oh, that's a really good beer," you know?
