Crafting Beer With Brewtherville Labs

Calling all homebrewers, beer enthusiasts and even the uninitiated.

A new club is brewing in Baltimore County, and two Lutherville men are looking for anyone interested craft beer to stop by the first meeting of Brewtherville Labs homebrew club Thursday night.

Homebrewers Stephen Kinsey and Michael Heitt recently founded the group, which will meet at Grand Cru in Belvedere Square at 8 p.m.

"There really aren't any homebrew clubs just outside of Baltimore City," said Kinsey. "We're hoping we'll get quite a few people because of that. About 12 people have RSVP'd to come to the first meeting, that's not bad for two weeks work."

Kinsey said that the first meeting of the club would be part beer tasting, part information session and part informal discussion.

"We want to talk about what everyone wants to get out of the club, that's going to be one of our first discussions," he said. "We have a draft consitution for the club, we’ll hand that out. There are a couple of positions within the club that we'll fill."

From there, he said he plans to host a beer tasting and discuss the basics of brewing.

"We’re definitely trying to cater to people who have never brewed before and are interested in learning," he said. "I know a few of the people who are coming have never done it before so we'll talk about the equipment you need and the cost. You dont have to have brewed before, you don’t even necessarily have to want to [brew] ... but you certainly have to want to learn about it."

"We will have a tasting ... go over how to taste beer, what to look for, what characteristics [are for a style]. Then we’ll taste a couple of different Oktoberfest beers. Michael and I brewed a marzen a while ago. I think a couple of other people might bring some homebrew as well."

Despite giving the club a name that screams Lutherville, Kinsey said anyone is welcome to join the club.

"If people are willing to drive from Pikesville, Owings Mills, White Marsh they're certainly welcome," he said. "We're going to be meeting at Grand Cru and we generally want to try and keep meetings around the Lutherville-Towson area."

In the future, Kinsey hopes the group will be able to organize trips to visit Maryland breweries like Union Craft Brewing in Woodberry and Burley Oak Brewing in Berlin.

And of course, brew beer together.

"As far as group brewing … we're going to organize for competitions. We'll keep calendar to list deadlines and what styles they accept. We'll try to get beers together to ship if they have to go to a different state."

More information about the Brewtherville Labs Homebrew Club can be found on the group blog or on meetup.com where Kinsey and Heitt created a group to organize meetings.

Correction: The text of this article originally said the first meeting of the club is to be held Wednesday night. It has since been updated to reflect the correct date: Thursday, Oct. 18.