Editor's Note: BW Beer Writer Dan Murphy and photographer Michael Dumas spent a weekend in early March touring all six of Alabama's operating breweries. This is the fifth installment of a series of columns focusing on the state's budding beer culture. Other installments can be found here.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — To tell the story of Huntsville's Straight To Ale brewery, one has to confront a central theme of that story, no matter its legal status. Because if you ignore homebrewing, you completely miss the point.

You see, although the law is rarely enforced, homebrewing isn't legal in Alabama, one of just two states that outlaw the hobby. But that never deterred Straight To Ale co-owner and head brewer Dan Perry, who started making his own beer in 1987. In fact, homebrewing is behind just about everything at Straight to Ale.

Take the brewery’s name, for instance, which came to Perry at a homebrew festival in Chattanooga, Tenn. Southern rock band Drivin’ and Cryin’ was crooning their irreverent hit, “Straight To Hell,” “and I was drinkin’ beer, and it just kind of went together,” Perry said. The Huntsville native named his homebrew shed “Straight To Ale,” and, when it came time to sell his beer commercially, “we couldn’t come up with anything better, so we just went with that.”

Then there’s the beer itself, much of which was formulated as a homebrew recipe that Perry “market-tested” on friends and co-workers at his job as an engineer. Unobtanium, a barrel-aged old ale and the brewery’s most-requested beer, began as a homebrew recipe designed with business partner Rick Tarvin. It was over that boiling concoction that the duo made up their minds to open a brewery in Huntsville.

So it came as no surprise when we arrived at our fifth stop of the Great Alabama Beer Tour to find about a half-dozen homebrewers eagerly toiling away over a batch of imperial stout on the brewery's small-batch pilot system. The beer is part of Straight To Ale's "Right to Brew" series, crafted by local brewers to be served on tap at the brewery's tasting room. "It works for us because we get beers that are different to put out," Perry said, adding that the homebrewers benefit by spreading the word that the hobby is illegal.

Located in a brick warehouse south of downtown, Straight To Ale is the first building on our tour that was previously a brewery, having housed the Olde Towne Brewing Co., Huntsville’s first post-prohibition craft brewery, until it closed in 2011. Straight to Ale is not the easiest place to find — it’s tucked behind a gym on a road dotted with office parks and warehouses — but that didn’t seem to deter the thirsty beer-drinkers who filled the bustling taproom early on a Saturday evening in March.

“It brings people in that have never tried our stuff,” Perry said of the taproom, the first in Huntsville when it opened in December. “We give them a sampler and they get to try all our different beers, and it sort of ties you to your local brewery. Anytime I travel anywhere, that’s what I do, I find a brewery and I go to their taproom, and that’s what people are doing here, so it’s very, very cool.”

Straight To Ale released its first beers to the public in May 2010, when the brewery was pumping out batches on a much smaller system at Huntsville’s Lincoln Mill. Regular offerings pay homage to north Alabama’s culture, and include Lily Flagg Milk Stout, Brother Joseph’s Belgian Dubbel and Monkeynaut IPA. The last is the brewery’s best-seller, and Perry said he has trouble keeping up with demand. During our visit, Monkeynaut, like every other offering, was available only on draft, but they’ve since installed a canning line, which started producing 12-ounce cans of the popular IPA in May.

The core beers take up most of Straight to Ale’s brewing schedule, but that doesn’t mean the brewers aren’t still having fun, particularly when it comes to barrel-aging. Dozens of wooden barrels, which once held Cognac, Bordeaux or Bourbon, line one wall of the brewery, and Perry described his barrel experiments not as work, but as play

“We’re playing with a lot of different barrels,” he said. He added, with a smile, “You know, if you start brewing the same beer over and over and it gets a little monotonous, and these [barrels] right here are where we get to experiment and try different things.”

Currently, Straight To Ale's beers are available only in north Alabama, but the brewery has plans to expand south. The tap room, at 3200 Leeman Ferry Road in Huntsville, is open Wednesday-Thursday, 3-8 p.m., and Friday-Saturday, 3-10 p.m. Free brewery tours are offered each Saturday at 2 p.m., and reservations are required at www.straighttoale.com/the-brewery.

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Dan Murphy is a page designer and resident beer nut at BW. You can contact Dan via email atdmurphy@press-register.com, "Like" his page on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter.