A large, waist-high cooler with eight beer taps sits anchored against the wall.

Inside it are old five-gallon kegs, covered by a sea of twisting hoses, kept cool and pressurized. Joshi Fullop walks to the freezer with two glasses and flips the tap to slowly pour a pale, straw-colored beer.

“This is a Koelsch,” Fullop said as he held the drink up to the light, admiring its color. “It’s a German lager that is kind of clean and a little bit dry.”

The glasses are raised and chinked with a satisfying ring.

With a thick, foamy head the beer had a cool, crisp taste that finished with a light burst of fruitiness and spice.

“A quiet summertime, easy-drinking beer.” Fullop said with a smile.

A natural scene for any local bar or restaurant only this one transpired in a nondescript living room on a quiet suburban street in Savoy, Ill.

At first, the image of a fully-stocked beer bar in a room strewed with children’s toys was a bit jarring. Yet to Fullop, the homeowner and homebrewer of the Koelsch, it is just his simple hobby.

Beer is one of the world’s oldest and most popular alcoholic beverages on the market. In ancient Egypt, beer, called “hqt,” served as an offering to the gods. Hammurabi, the great Babylonian King, decreed in his famous code of laws various regulations for selling and producing beer.

Today, an estimated 35 billion gallons of beer are sold each year from breweries around the world.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed bill that allowed U.S. home beer and winemaking. Before that, homebrewing was an illegal act, restricted by a holdover from the prohibition era.

According to the Illinois Liquor Control Commission, wine, cider and fermented alcohol from fruit or grain may all be produced at home “if it is made solely for the use of the maker, his family and his guests.”

Most states allow the brewing of a maximum of 200 gallons of beer per person older than 21 per household, per year.

According to the Boulder-based American Homebrewers Association, homebrewing nowadays is a growing trend in America.

“From our point of view homebrewing is definitely not on the decline,” said Jennifer Reimer, marketing coordinator for the association.

Currently there are just fewer than 11,000 association members nationwide with more than 500 in the state of Illinois alone.

As president of the University’s homebrewing club, the Boneyard Union of Zymurgical Zealots or B.U.Z.Z., Fullop has been making his own brew for approximately 10 years, much like his great-grandfather did during prohibition.

B.U.Z.Z., a registered student organization that has 30 or so active members, provides local brewers, both new and experienced, a chance to taste and talk about their brew, wine, or mead, an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey. It also lets members pool their orders for bulk purchases and hosts the annual B.U.Z.Z. Boneyard Brew-Off, which attracts entries from around the country. This year’s contest was held June 3.

The club began close to 15 years ago when Bill Artz, professor in food science and human nutrition, was approached by graduate students eager to delve into some zymurgy, the study of fermentation.

“Since I was teaching a course that was relevant to the subject at hand, (the graduate students) asked me to be their adviser,” Artz said.

The allure of homebrewing comes from both its freedom and effectiveness. Specialty or rare beers can be produced at home for a fraction of the cost. Homebrewers can play around with their creations, customizing recipes to their tastes with a healthy splash of experimentation. Plus, the experience and the resulting product are delicious fun.

In most styles of beer there are only four major ingredients: barley, water, hops and yeast. Just slightly altering these four simple elements can produce vastly different tastes, colors, smells and alcohol levels. Other ingredients can also be added, such as spices such as ginger or such fruits as strawberries.

The brewing process for beer is deceptively simple. It is essentially based on the fermentation of starch-based material, commonly malted barley, although other grains including rice or wheat can also be used.

The first step in the process is milling or cracking the malted barley to separate the seed from the husk, thus making the starches more accessible.

The mashed grains are then soaked in warm water at constant temperature to allow enzymes to convert starches into fermentable sugars. Next, the sugary water-barley mixture, called wort, is strained through the bottom of the large cooking pot, called a mash tun.

The wort is brought to a boil in a kettle during which hops are added, giving the beer its aroma and flavor. Certain types of hops can be added at different times affecting taste and smell.

After the boil, the wort is cooled and ends up in a fermentation tank. Finally, the brewer adds in yeast to ferment the wort sugars into alcohol and, after about two weeks of aging, brewing is complete.

The process, from mashing to drinking, can take anywhere from 10 days to several months.

For Fullop, brewing is a careful blend of art and science, as much as a creative process as a chemical reaction.

“You have your recipe, which is what you intend to do,” Fullop said. “Then you brew it and the difference between what you intend to do and what actually happens … that’s the art,”

Joel Plutchak, B.U.Z.Z.’s secretary, agreed.

“I like to see it as cooking,” Plutchak said. “You could have five different people go into identical kitchens with a single recipe and if they just don’t have that creative spark … it just won’t turn out the same.”

For the future, besides developing some tasty beers, Fullop might also create some future commercial success. Along with Chris Knight, owner of the Blind Pig, 120 N. Walnut St., Champaign, he is looking to open a microbrewery in downtown Champaign. Citing great demand and an idea market, Fullop sees the opportunity as a chance to showcase his brew, but more importantly, just to have some fun.

“The knowledge and demand for better beer products is huge in the area,” Fullop said. “The world is changing for the better for the beer drinker.”