The Brewers

I was in high school working at my first job (auto body repair) when one of the guys who hung around the shop (in between incarcerations) spoke the words that would change my life, “Back when I lived in a house,” (whatever that meant) “I used to make my own beer.” I spun around on the piece of cardboard on which I was seated, scrambled to my feet and said, “You can do that?”

Back then, the internet was not the torrent of information and misinformation that it is today -- one had to resort to human contact for information -- so I headed for the Homebrew Emporium. There I was greeted by a giant blond walking stick named Rich who gave me the ingredients and information that I needed and then sent me on my way. That afternoon I had bubbling bucket of wort fermenting in the far end of my closet behind my coats and shoes. It took some time, some more trips to see Rich and a few yeast explosions in my closet, but, eventually, I made something that might pass as beer.

In the almost 20 years since my inauspicious start as a brewer, the Homebrew Emporium has expanded and now has a brewery and tasting room. Rich has not expanded in the least and still has zero body fat. I am now married and have a 3-year-old son.

The operation that started in my closet moved to the garage when I got to the age at which my dad didn’t have to worry any more about illegal drinking. (By the way, it’s legal to buy brewing supplies under the age of 21.) With equal parts failure and success my dad and I slowly increased the quality of the brews and the size of the garage brewery to 1.5 barrels. Next came my wedding, for which my dad and I supplied the beer. After the honeymoon, the time came to start the completely unprofitable venture now known as Perfect World. Now it’s time to make Perfect World a going concern. Our business plan is simple. Make good beer and make enough for beer lovers in the greater Albany area.

My brewing story starts 15 years ago when my son, Pat, invited me to a bar by saying, “You’ll like it. There are lots of old guys there.” The bar was Mahar’s and the old guys were a collection of beer hounds all hoping to sample something rare from some distant corner of the planet. There were young guys too who were joined together with us oldsters to learn the finer points of Beerology at what was certainly Albany’s beer university. Our professor was the aptly named part-owner and bar program lead, Bill Dean. Our report cards came in the form of the print-outs from the Mahar’s World Beer Tour, a database which tracked our progress and allowed us to optimize our beer sampling effort.

Mahar’s taught me the difference between good beer and the beer that I had when I was growing up. Good beer tastes good. The beer that I had growing up really didn’t. In fact, the beer I knew before Mahar’s was so bad that I drank wine instead. I was no connoisseur, but I knew a few wine styles and a few wine regions. Happily, I found that beer also has styles and regions and that the range of variations in taste was far greater for beers than wine. Bill Dean’s special calling was acquiring and serving beers across that full range of variation.

Mahar’s is gone now. The Beer Tour database is ensconced at Albany’s Allen Street Pub where owners Steve and Paul are serving up some beer variety of their own. Pat and I have moved on from just drinking great beers to making beer at our own brewing company, Perfect World Brewing.

The brewery got its start in Pat’s garage where we began to leverage Pat’s brewing skill to make 45-gallon batches of home brew for friends and family. From there, we moved to our current location and put together our seven-barrel brewhouse. It took three years to license, build out and test the brewery, but in 2019, we produced our first production-sized batches.

Pat and I still have our day jobs, but we’re using our weekends to make what we think are some of Albany’s best beers. Someday soon Perfect World will be a full-time pursuit. In the meantime, we are thankful for all the support that we are receiving and sincerely hope you enjoy our beer.