By Ben Antonius | Daily Republic | July 17, 2009
Longtime beer homebrewer Michael Frenn works on his newest creation at the Blue Frog Brewery. Frenn has partnered with the brewery and will be entering a robust porter into the Great American Brew Festival. Photo by Chris Jordan
FAIRFIELD - Michael Frenn is hitting the big time.
Frenn, a longtime beer homebrewer, is partnering with Fairfield-based microbrewery Blue Frog to produce one of his recipes on the large scale for a national competition.
The first big day came on a recent Friday: brewing day. Frenn and Blue Frog brewmaster Nick Campbell had scaled up Frenn's home-sized robust porter recipe to produce 240 gallons and were scooping buckets of ingredients into a boiling tank.
'I'm in double nirvana,' Frenn said. 'This is like every homebrewer's dream.'
The next big day will be in September, when they and the beer will make their way to the Pro-Am competition at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.
Frenn's beer is a specific type of porter, a dark style of beer that lends itself to a wide range of interpretations. Frenn said he modeled his beer after a porter produced by the San Francisco-based Anchor Brewing Company, a process called 'cloning.'
It won a best of show award at a regional competition in March. Winning such an award is one of the criteria for entry in the pro-am category -- the other is finding a professional to partner with.
The two men knew each other through their tight-knit brewing circles, and Frenn gave Campbell a few bottles of the award winning batch.
'He liked the porter and he said let's brew it,' Frenn said.
Still, Frenn won't be the only one putting his pride on the line at the September festival, which Campbell said the industry considers 'our Academy Awards.'
Campbell said he has entered beers in the past in the professional side of the Great American Beer Festival and he has another batch of entries lined up for 2009, including a few bottles of a beer he brewed in 2004 for the brewery's then-fifth anniversary.
See the complete story at the Daily Republic online.
