Walk past the elevator, past the bathroom with the gleaming urinal and 1930s hand dryer and into the den with the three slot machines, the Skee-Ball and shuffleboard games and pool table, the high-end couches and the sailfish and the white marlin mounted on the wall.

All that’s window dressing. The real showstopper in Mike Sullivan’s basement is his brewery/bar, complete with cobblestone floors, brick wall, three taps, steins from Germany, and, beyond the Irish-pub-like facade reading “Sullivan’s Brewery,” an array of equipment that would qualify as the average home-brewer’s ultimate fantasy.

“I don’t think anyone in Jersey has something like this,” maintains the Plainfield resident, proudly showing off his brew room, outfitted with a Sabco Brew-Magic V350MS, fermenters and kegs, a shelf of brew-making books and magazines, and a closet stocked with hops.

The machinery cost $12,000; the bar, $18,000; the stainless-steel shelves, refrigerator and freezer, $20,000; the cobblestone floor, $7,000; and the Sullivan’s Brewery facade, $14,000. Do the math. This guy takes home-brewing seriously: “I know I have something special.”

You really don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to make good beer at home. You can buy a rudimentary Mr. Beer kit for $40 on Amazon.com. But Scott Begraft, co-owner of North Jersey HomeBrew in Sparta, recommends for beginners a Deluxe Brewer’s Best Kit for about $130, plus an ingredient kit in the $30 to $50 range.

He and shop co-owner Mike Pippitt have brewed 20 beers together, including a Belgian Quad, an Extra IPA and a dark maple ale made with maple sap and syrup — no water at all.

“I’ve tasted home brews that are better than any commercial beer,” Begraft says.

He estimates 60 percent of his customers are in their 20s and 30s, with another 20 percent to 30 percent in their 40s and 50s, although on the shop’s opening day last July, a couple in their mid-80s bought a home-brewing kit. There are about 1 million home-brewers and 1,000-plus home-brew clubs in the United States, according to the American Homebrewers Association.

This is not a recent phenomenon. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were both avid home-brewers. The Father of Our Country preferred English-style porters, while Jefferson built a state-of-the-art brew house at Monticello, his Virginia mansion. James Madison, the story goes, once considered creating a secretary of beer for the Cabinet. In colonial days, homemade beer was big; one of the first buildings constructed at Plymouth Rock was a brewery.

Home-brewing was legalized in 1978 for the first time since Prohibition; it is now legal in every state except Alabama and Mississippi.

More than 300 home-brew competitions, including The Star-Ledger’s own Jersey Homebrew Showdown, will be held in the United States this year.

Sullivan and other home-brewers are ready.

A Mac sits on a $1,000 stainless-steel table in Sullivan’s brew room; he uses the computer to inventory his grains, keep track of the batches he’s brewed, and run a beer-making program called BeerSmith. Containers of Cascade, Fuggle, Willamette, Goldings, Northern Brewer, Centennial, Amarillo and other hops are stored in a closet. Down the hall are 50-pound bags of base and specialty malts.

“Everything was thought out,” Sullivan says. “Even the door handle was thought out.”

Even with the fancy equipment, though, not every batch turns out right. “I’ve had failure on a porter where I didn’t have the fermentation,” he says. “I had to throw a blonde (ale) away once. It was winey, skunky.”

That is no ordinary blonde. Sullivan says it is his best beer, and the one he will produce if his dream of opening a commercial brewery comes true.

He brews every two weeks or so, but the urge can come upon him unexpectedly. “I’ll get the hankering anytime; I’ve brewed in the middle of the night.”

Sullivan peers into a storage closet and takes an oral inventory: Vienna malt, Victory malt, roasted barley, American Crystal malt. “You’re going to like this,” he adds excitedly, pulling a container of Canadian honey malt from the shelf. “Smell that …”

Peter Genovese: (973) 392-1765 or pgenovese@starledger.com. Twitter: @NJ_Munchmobile and @petegenovese