Soup at Six -- Homebrewing!

Steve did a GREAT job!!


An unusual sight -- Steve behind the podium!


Because our current Keller Gallery exhibit is about the Roaring Twenties, we thought it would be really neat to do a program on beer. Since Steve, our facilities manager, has been making beer for 11 years, he volunteered to do a Soup at Six program!


It was great to get another staff member involved in our programs who doesn't usually do any speaking. Even though this was his first program, he is passionate about beermaking and really conveyed that enthusiasm to the audience. And his sense of humor definitely added to it!


First we served a WONDERFUL beer cheese soup, made from scratch by volunteer Randy Smith, who makes all of our soups for the Soup at Six programs. We heard lots of great compliments! His soups have just been amazing.



Visitors enjoying the soup. This is a table of Steve's friends and family.

After the soup, the volunteers served up pretzels and beer nuts for the program.

First Steve talked about Prohibition, and all of the ways people violated it! He pointed out that many of our Founding Fathers were either homebrewers or bartenders, and that the Puritans packed more beer onto the Mayflower than water!


Then we took a break so the volunteers could serve up some of Steve's homemade beer:






In the second part of his program, Steve explained the process of making beer.

Click here for a video I posted a few weeks ago of the beer in progess.

After watching the whole process first hand for the past 6 weeks, I was the most surprised by how sterile everything has to be, or your beer will be ruined. I never really gave much thought to how beer is made. I certainly didn't realize that it took so long!


From beginning to end, the process takes about 30 days. And it isn't cheaper to make it at home. It is a fun hobby, and the more serious you get, the more you can customize the beer to your liking.



Steve showing a slide of him bottling the beer.

Visitors enjoying some of Steve's homebrew!

A toast!

I was another successful Soup at Six program! We are so excited at the response we've gotten to this new series. We are in the process of planning a new series of Soup at Six and Tea with the Curator programs for our next Keller Gallery exhibits, Stories in Stone and Going Out In Style, which will focus on cemetery symbolism and the mausoleums of the rich and famous!

Here are a few video clips of Steve "in action" tonight -- enjoy!!

(Click on the play button, even if the screen is black)

GREAT JOB STEVE!!!!!