Anyone who knows me knows that I’m absolutely, positively in love with wine. It’s perfect in so many ways: It tastes fantastic (at least it should); it compliments food, chocolate, popcorn and other snacks; and it’s an overall great tool to accompany any social situation. So when I found out that Northern Brewer was offering a wine making class, I simply couldn’t refuse.

I brought my friend Jessica along promising both wine and knowledge, two things she’s never opposed to receiving. As someone who drinks wine fairly often, I thought that learning how to make wine couldn’t hurt, especially if there’s money to be saved.

Northern Brewer is a homebrew supply located at 1306 S. 108th St., that provides everything you need to brew up your favorite beverages – from beer, to wine, to mead. Not only do they sell the supplies needed to for home brewing, but they offer various classes and events to go along with them.

The class that Jessica and I attended was the intro to wine and mead making class taught by Robb Howard, the Northern Brewer in-house wine expert. We learned that Robb was a former insurance agent until his wife pushed him to do what makes him happy in life – and he found that happiness laid within home brewing. And then we learned about wine.

From there, we learned that kit wine is the way to go when it comes to making wine at home. Kit wines consist of concentrated juice, yeast and other various materials which allow one to ferment their own wine in the span of a few months. As a matter of fact, in Canada, kit wines are quite popular due to the taxes put on bottled wines. In fact, most winners of wine awards in Canada’s past made their wines with wine kits! Great idea, eh?

Anywho, the makers of wine kits are able to call their operations a functional winery because they still work in vineyards and labs, in order to ultimately produce wine that tastes oh so good. Kit wines are the key to the future people; the Canadians know it, and it’s time for us to catch up.

In order to achieve your homemade wine, it’s important to have specific materials to be successful in your endeavor. Here is the list of materials:

• A primary and secondary fermenter (a plastic bucket works best for fermenting, but has a tendency to hold smells in their micros scratches)
• A wine cleaner/sanitizer
• Decapper/channel lock pliers (used to open a wine kit)
• Airlocks/bungs
• Wine whip (used for degassing and mixing)
• Fresh water
• Wine thief
• Hydrometer
• Wine bottles
• Corks
• Corker

Sounds like a lot? Don’t worry, there are kits available just for wine making at Northern Brewer.

After going through the whole process, I learned a few more things. For one, plastic is best for fermenting, but glass is easier to clean, impervious to air and doesn’t scratch. You decide which works best for you.

Second, after emptying out the concentrated juice, swish around a little extra water to get all the remaining grape skin and other remnants that add depth of flavor and lots of body to your wine. Third, Milwaukee water is perfect for brewing. We’re not exactly sure if it’s the pH levels or what, but Milwaukee’s water supply is the way to go.

Next, don’t rehydrate the yeast before adding it to your juice mixture. Don’t mix it in; let the yeast wake up in the juice. And lastly, don’t forget to sanitize everything with the provided sanitizers – this is essential to achieve a beautiful, clear wine. 

A great wine rarely happens without intention, so those points should help to give your wine a little oomph. 

This class has also given me insight into the mystery of mead, and all of its glory.

Mead is actually fermented honey, and it can have quite a high alcohol content. Mead is ultimately made by fermenting honey with water, and most often adding fruits, spices, grains or hops to create various flavors. It is considered to be the ancestor of brewing because of its existence in earlier civilizations. Rumor has it that the Romans discovered this phenomenon from carrying honey along with them on their travels, only to have it be exposed to the elements and fermenting. The result was a sweet, yet satisfying spirit that brought them much joy.

The mead that I sampled at Northern Brewer was created by none other than our wonderful presenter, Robb. It was my first time drinking mead, and if I may say so myself, Robb did a pretty good job.

All in all, I had a great afternoon with Robb the wine expert at Northern Brewer. If wine isn’t your thing, then you can certainly learn how to brew other things on your own! (Did I forget to mention that you can also learn how to make cheese?) Northern Brewer is a great resource for those that want to step out of their comfort zone and do things themselves. Don’t forget, these resources are free. I would surely recommend checking out their website and paying them a visit – you won’t be disappointed!