When Newport Commissioner Mike Radwanski isn’t busy with city tasks or his day job, there’s a good chance he’s in his basement brewing a Czech or German-style lager.
Radwanski got the idea to start brewing his own beer in 2007 from a Sam Adam commercial, marketing their “Longshot” contest. He said he never participated in that contest, but that commercial led to a 16-year-long side hobby.
Though he has never entered one of his brews into the Sam Adam’s contest, the craft has won him 66 home brewing medals from other local competitions. He said he does like the competitive nature of it, but that’s not why he does it.
“The goal would be to replicate what you could have in Europe but have it as fresh as possible so it wouldn’t be exported,” Radwanski said. “And then you’re drinking something that you know has basically shipped from Europe.”
The hobby allows him to drink a bottle of beer cheaper than if he bought it at the store, as it only costs him around 40 cents a bottle to brew.
Radwanski compared the complexity of the home brewing process to making soup.
“If you can make vegetable stew, you can make your own beer,” he said.
Another thing Radwanski said he likes to do is to cook. More specifically he likes to make his pizza from scratch, including the dough and sauce.
“Why not make really good beer to go along with the food?” he said.
He buys all his grain in bulk, which he sources from Germany. He also said he had refined his process to use only two types of hops and three yeast strains.
“It’s a great hobby if you like continuous improvement because there’s always an opportunity to improve your process,” he said.
Radwanski has his five-gallon setup in his basement and said it looks like something out of Breaking Bad.
“My setup looks a lot more complicated than it really needs to be because it’s equipment that has been cobbled together over the years,” Radwanski said.
He added that homebrewing equipment had advanced so much since 2007 that it cost a fifth of what he spent and would only take up a third of the footprint.
Radwanski said it takes about half a day of work to make a batch of beer. Most of that time is spent cleaning and waiting. It then takes about seven to 15 days to ferment. If he chooses to keg the beer, then it is drinkable almost immediately; however, if it is bottled, then it takes about another two weeks.
Radwanski started bottling his beer more during the pandemic because it cost less than buying carbon dioxide for a keg. He decided to work with a graphic designer to design his home brewing labels for an additional side project. During the pandemic, he created a craft brewery feel to his basement and came up with the name “Linden Basement Brewing Company” for his beer, though it’s not an official company.
“I think everybody during the pandemic was trying to find a way to distract themselves, and that’s kind of what I did,” Radwanski said. “I made beer out of my basement.”
There are some strict components to it as well, he said. The brews can only leave your house if you are at a contest, and there is a cap to how much beer you can brew a year.
Most recently, Radwanski has participated in the Bockfest homebrew contest. Bockfest is a Cincinnati celebration of Over-the-Rhine’s brewing heritage and Bock beer. Radwanski submitted his doppelbock brew, which took home second place in the strong bock category, and his smoked bock won an honorable mention.
One of his most notable wins was at a competition in Dayton, Ohio, where he won runner-up best of show. The contest was memorable, not just because of the win but because the beer that won took him only a short time to perfect, unlike others which have taken years.
Radwanski’s recipe was inspired by a Czech dark lager he had while on a trip to Asheville, NC.
After tasting it, he said he took out his phone to write out what he thought the tasting notes were and started building the recipe in his mind.
“I came home, bought the ingredients, brewed a batch, put it into that contest, and it won the runner-up best of show,” Radwanski said. “So that was one that was just a total fluke.”
After some success with his brews, Radwanski said he started working on a business model for his own brewery around 2016 but found that the market was over-saturated and would be too expensive. He said he is satisfied with keeping home brewing as a side hobby rather than trying to expand it.
