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A heart of hops

Mansfield native finds creativity in brewing process

For most, a beer is a nice way to decompress after a long day — hang up the keys, grab a cold one from the fridge and let the stresses of the day melt away. For Andrew Koskie, of Mansfield, however, the end of the workday is not necessarily the end of the workday. Sure, it involves beer and it is relaxing, but it is still hard work and requires time and diligence. Andrew Koskie is a homebrewer, and it all began with a Mr. Beer brewing kit his college roommate, Frank Meise, got for Christmas.

Creativity in batches

“We only made one batch, which turned out awful,” Koskie said, but that did not stop him and Meise from going all in, so to speak. He describes their next move as the true college experience. “Fortunately for us, we didn’t give up, and made a huge monetary investment based off our failure,” Koskie said, who jumped into all-grain brewing, a brewing technique most similar to the process of a commercial brewery.

But Koskie’s smaller scale gives him more creative freedom to experiment with ingredients and put twists on popular beer styles, like pale ales.

“I will play around with fruit or spices to give it a unique flavor. Sometimes a batch doesn’t turn out, but on such a small scale, it doesn’t ruin my ego to dump it out,” Koskie said. Commercial breweries also implement smaller-scale brewing — very similar to homebrewing — to try out new flavors. The main difference is Koskie has more control over his product.

“Homebrewing allows me the option to create beers that can’t be bought in the store,” said Koskie.

In addition to pale ales, Koskie has brewed everything from lagers to sours, stouts, Belgian styles and even a Cinnamon Toast Crunch beer. He is president of the Billtown Brewers Guild, a local chapter of the American Homebrewers Association, and has recently served beers for the public at the Battle of the Homebrewers in Harrisburg, hosted by Harrisburg Beer Week. A unique example of creating beers that cannot be bought in the store that Koskie served in Harrisburg is his stout brewed with Oreos. Alongside the Oreo stout was a collaboration pale ale made with hemp flowers.

“To brew beer takes a lot more than one thinks,” Koskie said, who notes a large stock pot and a few kitchen utensils are adequate starting equipment. Koskie chooses a style of beer, and then builds his recipe around it. Although brewing kits are easily available, Koskie enjoys sourcing his own ingredients — including home-grown hops. “A brew day of about four hours is needed,” Koskie said.

“90 percent is cleaning, five percent is brewing and five percent is drinking the fruits of your labor, he added.”

Brewing process

This sounds like a tasty walk in the park, but the process is a little more complex than ingredients plus time equals beer and a happy brewer.

“I start the day by cleaning and sterilizing my equipment, which helps to eliminate the chance of infection in the final product,” Koskie said, who then mills his barley, as well as wheat or oats. Fermentable sugars are created when the grains are soaked in water at a controlled temperature — this converts the starches.

After an hour, the product can be collected to boil.

“After a process called sparging, the grain is rinsed and the wort is collected,” Koskie said, who continues that hops and other ingredients are added during an hour-long liquid boil. The wort is then quickly cooled and drained into a fermenting vessel, into which yeast is added to dissolve the sugars and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide.

“The (carbon dioxide) bubbles off over the next few weeks, leaving behind the beer,” Koskie said, who attributes his brewing knowledge to YouTube videos, brewery tours and lots of experimentation.

Beer with benefits

But Koskie’s passion for and skill at brewing beer does not just benefit him but also the Kathryn Candor Lundy Breast Health Center, where his mother Lynne Koskie beat breast cancer in 2013. Koskie entered into a homebrew competition held on National Learn to Homebrew Day by the Lucky Hare Brewing Company in Hector, New York, and won with his dark Belgian strong ale, brewed with honey and local cherries.

The prize? The brewery offered to brew the winning recipe at their brewery and sell it in their taproom.

“The winner would also have the chance to choose a charity … to donate a portion of the proceeds to,” Koskie said, who adds that choosing the Kathryn Candor Lundy Breast Health Center was a “no brainer.”

“(My mother) always said how professional and compassionate everyone was there, and she had complete confidence in the care they gave her,” Koskie said, whose mother continues to receive mammograms at the Breast Health Center — and continues to be cancer-free. Thankfully, Lynne’s cancer diagnosis was made early, so the proper treatments could be started.

“Thanks to the Breast Health Center, my mom could dance with me at my wedding,” Koskie said. To add to this victory, Koskie also brewed some of the beer served at his wedding.

For now, Koskie is content with brewing as a hobby, but would love to brew on a commercial level one day or own a brewery.

Koskie’s and other members of the Billtown Brewers Guild’s brews can be sampled at the Thomas T. Taber Museum’s Bottles & Brews event on Aug. 9.

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