BY KIM METCALF
THE CARY NEWS

 It’s hard to refute an authority like Plato who once said “He was a
wise man who invented beer.”
 Thousands of years later more than 1.5 million brewers in the United
States are still rising to the task, creating a huge variety of homemade
suds to sip and share. They often do so under the auspices of one of the
600 homebrew organizations nationwide.
 Locally, they gather as CARBOY – or, the Cary/Apex/Raleigh Brewers of
Yore – a homebrew group formed in 1995 to promote and expand the hobby
of creating concoctions from ales to porters and beyond. CARBOY is a
fitting name, since it’s a term for a homebrewer’s fermenting container.
 “The group is a family-oriented social organization that promotes and
enjoys the art of beer brewing,” said one of CARBOY’s founding members,
Larry Matthews, who has brewed beer for nine years.
 “Art” is the key word for practitioners. Brewing beer can be as simple
or as complicated as desired by the lady or gentleman stirring the pot.
In reality, more men enjoy the hobby, though several women count
themselves among the 45-strong membership of CARBOY. In fact, there is
no stereotypical homebrewer – local members range from high-tech
engineers to university professors to blue collar workers.
“The hobby hits different walks of life as far as the folks it draws,”
said CARBOY President Jim Navecky.
What joins them is a love for the taste of unique brews they can create
themselves – sort of a do-it-yourself mentality.
“Brewing beer is real closely related to the people who like to cook,”
said Navecky. “It’s about working with your hands to create something
unique and getting satisfaction from making something you can share with
your friends.”
Creating a custom brew can be as simple as mixing up ingredients in
pre-measured kit or following a complex recipe. The process basically
boils down to water, malt, yeast and hops – it’s the mixing and
measuring, timing and technique that distinguish brewers.
“Homebrewing is like baking a cake,” he continued. “You can go buy a box
of Betty Crocker or you can create it from scratch.”
 If you’ve never belly-upped to a basement bar and taken a swig of a
homebrew beer, you can’t imagine what you’re missing. The tastes are as
disparate as the brewers themselves, with the colors spanning the
rainbow from a golden yellow to the richest brown, with plenty of shades
of red in between.
 With 24 different categories of beers and about 130 different substyles
within those categories, the possibilities to invent an intriguing
flavor are seemingly endless.
 “It’s a mix of cooking and chemistry,” said Mike Williams, owner of
Raleigh’s American Brewmaster, Inc., one of the area’s homebrew supply
stores.
Williams hosted a recent event at his store featuring homebrew guru
Charlie Papazian, president of the American Homebrewer’s Association and
author of “The New, Complete Joy of Homebrewing” and “The Homebrewer’s
Companion” – brewer’s Bibles, of sorts. The event was well attended by
CARBOY members.
 “There’s a good beer culture in this country now thanks to homebrewers
like you,” Papazian told the crowd. “Those batches of beer – five
gallons at a time – has a lot to do with your efforts and interest in
this hobby.”
“One of the neat things about this hobby,” added Williams, “is that you
can make beer on thousands of different levels.”
 Beer tastes have expanded beyond the staples produced by Budweiser,
Coors and Miller, evidenced by the wide variety of microbrews available
at local grocery stores.
 “I think people like the flavor of something different,” explained
Navecky. “Most American beers just taste the same – those breweries do
what they do well, because they’re very consistent. But some people just
prefer more taste and flavor to their beer, and it can be hard to find
that.”
 Many microbreweries grew out of homebrew basement setups, though most
of the local CARBOY members hold no such goals. They simply enjoy
testing different techniques and tasting the lip-smacking results.
Several share their expertise by serving as judges for competitions
around the state.
 “It’s come a long way in the short time I’ve been a part of this
 group,” Navecky said. “You can definitely tell a difference in the
quality of beers that are brought to the meetings. It’s gone up greatly.
Every once in awhile you’ll taste one and think ‘yuck,’ but the
techniques and ingredients have made it to where you can brew up a
pretty good batch of beer.”
 Hanging out with the CARBOY crowd is sure to elicit a variety of taste
tests and conversations. Most bring about three bottles of their latest
brew to share at the monthly meetings.
Beyond these gatherings, CARBOY members enjoy year-round social events
such as summer picnics, a Christmas party, a Superbowl gathering and, of
course, an Oktoberfest blowout, all for $15 in annual dues.
Membership is open to anyone who may legally drink in North Carolina,
and guests are invited to attend a monthly meeting to get a feel for the
flavor of the club.
According to Navecky, the club is as much about education as it is about
fun and sharing mugs of suds. There are regular small-group brew
sessions offering directions on equipment and techniques. There are
seminars led by experienced brewers. There are tours of area breweries.
These are folks who take seriously Benjamin Franklin’s exhortation that
“beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
“You can brew something simple and quick and have yourself some beer and
be happy with it,” said Navecky of the homebrew process. “That the
ultimate thing – as long as you’re happy with it, that’s what counts.”
 CARBOY meets the fourth Wednesday of every month at the BB&Y restaurant
in Raleigh’s Koger Executive Center. Call Matthews at 362-9407 for more
information.