Many people I knew were brewing beer, and it seemed like something I wanted to try. For my birthday a couple of years ago, Berta took me to the homebrew store in Downingtown and we brought back a bunch of equipment to make beer. The brewing went pretty well, and in the spring of 2011 I heard of a homebrewing-related event taking place involving some people I knew in Philadelphia, called Beer Camp. We decided to participate, taking a Dunkelweizen of our own to compete against the others. I invited our friend, Ken, to “help” us set up and serve beer out of a vacant lot next to the Jamaican Jerk Hut on South Street with a few other brewers. The event went well, but I think it lost money, possibly due to the high cost of the property rental for the afternoon.
After Beer Camp, Ken and I started talking about bringing such an event back to Chester County, using the Elks lodge as a place to host. We’d keep the same general format as Beer Camp, invite home brewers to share their beer for free, serve a nice dinner to the attendees, play some music, and have a good time sampling the beer. We joined up with our fellow Elk, Troy, and started to plan the Chester County Homebrew Festival.