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Photo courtesy of Design2Brew
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Photo courtesy of Design2Brew
Design2Brew, a brewery and beer- and wine-making center in O'Fallon (9995 Winghaven), will hold its first free class of the year this Saturday.
"You can come in and know absolutely nothing [about brewing]," says Design2Brew co-owner Stephanie Drilling.
The 4-hour class on January 7, starting at 10:30 a.m., will take attendees through three different processes of brewing beer and demonstrate how to design a recipe, the science behind the process, and how to bottle or keg. This brewing science class, held every first Saturday of the month (except in May), is free and no registration is required.
Lunch will likely be provided for the class this weekend and attendees can try beer from Design2Brew's taps. Drilling says the January class is usually the most fun because it tends to be the busiest.
"A lot of people get a beer kit for Christmas," she says. "They take it out of the box. They're really excited, but they're not really sure what to do with it. YouTube videos only go so far."
This free class is identical to the one-on-one brewing class Design2Brew offers for $139. The main difference is, attendees in the private classes can take home five gallons of the beer they make. In the free group classes, the beer made is kept and put on Design2Brew's tap rotation.
Drilling and her husband, both homebrewers, opened Design2Brew about 2.5 years ago.
"This our retirement business," she says, adding, "We decided we wanted to do something fun for the last 10 years of it."
Design2Brew offers its own beers and teaches classes on how to make beer, wine, mead, cider, and how to distill. Free wine-making classes will be held the second or third Sunday of each month this year. The first is slated for January 22 at 10:30 a.m. Drilling says they'll take customers through the steps of how to use home wine kits.
Drilling adds that many customers call (sometimes from other states) or visit Design2Brew to ask questions about equipment and ingredients, which Drilling says have come a long way when it comes to brewing.
"People are always surprised at how good [their beer] tastes," she says.
Editor's note: This post was updated with additional information on free wine-making classes at Design2Brew.
