MINNEAPOLIS — Perhaps the Milwaukee Brewers would be a better fit for Glen Perkins.

Before that sentence causes panic, the Minnesota Twins closer and Stillwater, Minn., native is perfectly happy in his home state and pitching for his hometown team. The moniker of Milwaukee’s team, though, fits perfectly with Perkins’ latest hobby: home brewing.

Perkins got into home brewing at the end of the 2014 season and has brewed about a dozen batches since then. It’s started out on a small scale, as is the case with most home brewers. Perkins is currently brewing five gallons at a time, though he has ambitions to up his production to 10 gallons per brew.

Having already smoked plenty of meats as yet another off-the-field hobby, Perkins chose to try another craft that allows him to experiment a bit with recipes while also getting to enjoy the final product.

“I like beer. I guess with the kids going to school and extra down time during the offseason, I was looking for something,” Perkins said. “I like to smoke food, so it kind of goes hand in hand, I guess, just the experimentation, that kind of stuff.”

The first batch he made was a cream ale. Perkins then tried his hand at a chocolate milk stout before shifting gears in the brewing process. After using a malt extract for his first few batches — the common method of most beginner brewers — Perkins switched to a different, slightly more advanced method called all-grain brewing. That allowed him to make a replica of one of his favorite beers, Spotted Cow from New Glarus Brewing in Wisconsin.

Perkins’ proudest moment as a home brewer came when he tried to replicate one of the beers made by St. Paul mainstay Summit Brewing, nearly perfecting their Extra Pale Ale.

One of Glen Perkins’ off-the-field hobbies is smoking meats.

“That was probably my favorite one I’ve had that I’ve made,” Perkins said. “That one went down the fastest. That disappeared really quick.”

It’s the perfect time for Perkins to be getting into the home brewing scene in Minnesota. The Twin Cities area is booming with craft breweries popping up left and right, and there are also several stores that cater to home brewers like Perkins. It was at one of those stores, in fact, that Perkins had a chance encounter with some of the employees from Bad Weather Brewing, which is based in St. Paul.

Since getting to know them a bit, Perkins has had the opportunity to help out with the beer making process at Bad Weather — which was a bit of an eye opener for the home brewer.

“I was dumping five gallon buckets of hops into beer instead of three ounces,” Perkins said. “It was like a palate of hops. It was really cool to see. It’s the exact same thing, just on a 900 gallon scale.”

Not to get too into the X’s and O’s of brewing, but Perkins certainly has his favorite types of beer he enjoys making. He’s a fan of cascade hops, as well as citra, and doesn’t necessarily care for overly hoppy beers. He started out bottling his beers but eventually moved to a kegging system.

For the amateur home brewer, the hobby can be relatively inexpensive with a basic starter kit of equipment. Even though he’s relatively new to the process, though, Perkins isn’t skimping on his brewing equipment.

“If I’m going to do it, I want to do it right,” Perkins said. “I don’t want crappy beer. I’ve tried to get the equipment good enough to where I can make good stuff and eliminate errors and irregularities and stuff like that. It’s been fun so far. It’s been a good project.”

Now that the Twins’ season has started again, Perkins isn’t quite sure how much time he’ll have to brew. It began this past October once Minnesota was done playing. Now, he’d have to fit it into the few hours of down time he has between dropping his girls off at school in the morning and heading to the ballpark in the early afternoon.

Perkins doesn’t have a name for his home brewery, or for his home brews. And though Perkins may be his own toughest critic on the final product, some of his Twins teammates have given him their input.

Overall, Perkins’ brews pass the test.

“Guys have tried some stuff,” he said. “They’ve liked it. So far, so good.”