Robert Allen

Detroit Free Press

A bucket with a lid and a $2 airlock is all you need to make your own beer Saturday in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood.

"If you want to learn how to make the beer, it'd be a great time to show up," said Sean Murphy, 49, of Black Bottom Brew Club. "All you need to bring is something to take it away with."

The National Homebrewing Day event is one of about eight on Saturday across metro Detroit, and details on all of them are available on the American Homebrewers Association website. Murphy said his event will be using all-Michigan ingredients, and it will be a chance to use some experimental hops grown in-state that haven't even been named yet.

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The Black Bottom Brew Club event will be at 1055 Trumbull, where he and Peter Cornillie, 24, are preparing to open the Black Bottom Brewing Co., an artisanal nanobrewery, possibly in the next couple months.

Murphy said that on Saturday he'll be showing people through the steps of making 5-gallon batches. Buckets and airlocks can be purchased at any homebrewing supply store. Participants with buckets will be able to take the wort home and let it ferment into beer. On bottling day, they can bring the beer back for help filling a keg or bottles (used, non-twist-off beer bottles work well).

The free event is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and RSVP is required by Friday to either the club's Facebook page or through the American Homebrewers Association website. About 20 people came last year, Murphy said, adding that it's a way for people to get their feet wet without having to buy all the needed supplies.

He got inspired to start homebrewing on a trip to the Kalamazoo area in 1996. His brother insisted they visit Bell's Brewery, so they went to the taproom.

"I felt like I'd jumped down the rabbit hole," Murphy said. "I tried one of their scotch ales."

He said that the guy working the tap handle had made the beer and shared some knowledge about beer grains and styles.

"I decided that day I was going to work toward that," Murphy said. "It made an impression on me."

Learn brewing with the KGB in Warren

More than a dozen people plan to bring brewing equipment and set up to make beer starting at about 10 a.m. Saturday at a parking lot in Warren.

"I always encourage people to bring their friends, people they think might be interested in learning about it," said Gary Marshall, 34, of Troy, with the Kuhnhenn Guild of Brewers. "It's one of those hobbies that, people don't think they could make beer at home, and it's actually not as hard as people think."

He said he's been homebrewing for about seven years and has made 120 batches. The National Homebrew Day event is outside Brewing World on 5951 Chicago Road in Warren. Brewing World and nearby Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. sponsor the club.

About 80 active members are in KGB, and Marshall said people with little or no experience can join to learn how to craft beer. Saturday's event is free. To join the club is $25 per year, which includes 10% off at Brewing World and other benefits.

For a recent project, 10 club members brewed their own batches of the same Russian imperial stout and poured them all into a used Four Roses Bourbon barrel. It aged in Marshall's basement for about a year before they took it out last fall.

"Once it came out, it was really, really good," he said. Now, they've refilled the barrel with a Belgian quadruppel.

The American Homebrewers Association reports in a news release that there are more than 1.2 million homebrewers in the United States. Last year, National Homebrew Day was celebrated at 483 sites across 48 states and 12 other countries, creating 17,804 gallons of homebrew.

More information on the homebrewing events, along with a map, is available on the association's website.

Spirits of Detroit columnist Robert Allen covers craft alcohol for the Free Press. Contact him: rallen@freepress.com or on Untappd, raDetroit; Twitter @rallenMI, and Facebook robertallen.news.