Anyone who has sat in an intimate pub in England and enjoyed a pint of lager has had trouble drinking the American flavors.

The effort and expense of buying high-quality beer in the States may be one reason attributed to the increasing numbers of homebrewers.

“There is an estimated one to one-and-a-half million homebrewers in the States,” said Brian Rezac, administrator for the American Homebrewers Association, from his office in Boulder, Colo. “Some may be once-a-year brewers and some are serious, like every weekend. Well, not every weekend, that would almost be considered bootlegging.”

When homebrewing became popular in brew pubs and garages during the 1980s, the U.S. Congress created National Homebrew Day, first held on May 2, 1988.

“The Congressman that passed it through was from Colorado,” Rezac laughed. “But the purpose of the day is simply to recognize homebrewing.”

With the 10th anniversary of National Homebrew Day fast approaching, the AHA decided to celebrate in a special way and host Big Brew ’98.

“Big Brew ’98 is an inaugural attempt organized by the [AHA] to create a brewing record worthy of the ‘Guinness Book of Records,’ for the largest batch of beer brewed simultaneously, at multiple sites, across the country,” a press release stated.

“It’s an attempt for the ‘Guinness Book,’ but that’s not the real push,” Rezac explained. “It’s really to promote and increase the awareness of homebrewing. It’s also to promote unity.

“Homebrewers will argue the details of brewing,” Rezac continued. “This will give everyone a chance to set aside their arguments and celebrate their similarities.”

For one Ames resident, Big Brew ’98 is already a success. It will be Rob Moline’s Barleywine recipe that 87 sites, including sites in Israel and England, will be brewing simultaneously.

“Brewing is what I do for a living, and concocting recipes is part of the job,” Moline said.

Moline, who works at Court Avenue Brewing Company in Des Moines, said it only took him a half-an-hour to create the recipe.

“It was based on me having an excess of a certain kind of malt that I needed to burn up,” Moline explained. “I wanted to close out last year with a big bang, and barleywines don’t get much bigger.”

One of his friends, a fellow brewer, had a chance to sample Moline’s barleywine recipe and threatened to “kick my butt if I didn’t enter it into the Great American Beer Festival,” he said.

“There are a lot of foo-foo competitions out there where 85 percent of the people entered get an award,” Moline explained. “These competitions are usually judged on how they taste and not how they are brewed.

“In the Great American Beer Festival, the brews are judged technically and stylistically,” he continued.

“If they are not perfect technically, there is no award given. Even if there is one defect, they usually say, ‘that’s pretty damn near perfect but not perfect enough,’ so you receive a silver,” Moline said.

Last year, there were 1,800 brews entered in the Great American Beer Festival, and Moline took the gold and captured the attention of the AHA.

It immediately wanted to feature his recipe for Big Brew ’98.

“We picked Rob’s recipe because he is a true pro-brewer,” Rezac said.

“Although he is a professional, he hasn’t forgotten homebrewing, and that alone epitomizes one difference between beer brewing in the States and Europe — most professionals came up through the ranks of homebrewing.

“We also chose [Moline] because when anyone wins a medal of this caliber, we’re interested in the recipe,” he added. “Rob’s beer is a good sipping beer with a high alcohol content, and Rob is well-respected.”

Moline will be flying to Boulder, Colo., to run the on-line chat room and answer questions during the Big Brew and he will help brew at the Boulder site.

For other homebrewers who wanted to participate, they had to register official sites through the AHA. So far, sites have been registered from homebrew clubs in California to those in Israel. There is even a site registered in Ames.

“I’m doing it because I know Rob,” said Jeff Kenton, Ames homebrewer and graduate student in curriculum and instruction technology. “When it came down from AHA to use his recipe, I knew I would do it.”

Kenton, who has been homebrewing for five years, started brewing in his garage when he became “curious about how hard it really was and wondered if I could do better than Budweiser,” he said.

“One advantage of homebrewing is that you can decide what to make,” Kenton continued.

“You can make an amber like Sam Adams, a pale lager like Budweiser or a stout like Guinness. You usually make about five gallons at a time, which equals two cases per batch. If you make a mistake, you have to pour out 48 bottles — but it won’t break you.”

Kenton also said homebrewing doesn’t have to be expensive.

Although the serious brewer might spend a lot of money importing ingredients from Ireland and Germany, brewers can buy ingredients from Save-U-More for $3.

Although Kenton is looking forward to hosting one of the 87 sites on Saturday, he has doubts about whether Big Brew ’98 will make it into the “Guinness Book of Records.”

Rezac shares his sentiments.

The trick will be to make sure everyone does the same steps simultaneously.

“It’s very hard to get into the ‘Guinness Book,'” Rezac said.

“We’ve tried it before. You have to jump through a lot of hoops. Our main concern is doing something fun and promoting homebrewing. If it doesn’t work, we may come up with a booklet.”

When the AHA is not organizing large-scale events, the nonprofit organization publishes a magazine, “Zymurgy,” named after a chemical process in brewing that deals with the fermentation process.

The AHA also hosts conferences and “promotes home brewing through education,” Rezac said.

“We also work with grass roots movements because homebrewing is still illegal in some states,” he added.

For more information on the American Homebrewers Association or Big Brew ’98, find it on the Web at www.aob.org.