Since homebrewing became federally legal in 1979, the number of people brewing beer at home has climbed to more than 1.2 million in the United States alone, according to the Boulder, Colo.-based American Homebrewers Association (AHA).
In the mid-1990s, when the craft beer movement still was in relative infancy, Stone Brewing co-founders Greg Koch and his homebrewing partner Steve Wagner were busy experimenting with beer recipes and bemoaning the “industrial fizzy yellow stuff.”