Raise a Glass to The Lucky Couple!
RETIREE PAT AND HER HUSBAND, SCOTT, ARE AWARD-WINNING HOMEBREWERS
If you venture into the basement of Pat and Scott Ludwig’s home in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, you’ll find a cross between a brewery’s back room and a mad scientist’s laboratory. The couple has squeezed a five-tap beer fridge, a two- tap converted chest freezer, and both one- and five-gallon homebrewing systems into the space! On any given day, you could discover broken-down bourbon barrels or 60 pounds of cherries waiting to become cherry Lambic. It’s a beer-lover’s wonderland! Scott started his adventures in homebrewing back in 2007. That year, a few of his friends tried their hand at making beer. They handed Scott a sample of their latest brew and he was immediately hooked. It tasted a lot like the vivid, flavorful brews he used to drink in South America during his days in the Peace Corps. “Their beers were really, really, really good beers. I’ve always been kind of a science guy so brewing was a natural progression. Brewing is really cool because it’s this marriage of chemistry, biology, and physics,” he says. Scott is still working for the U.S. Forest Service, managing the Mineral & Geology Management group’s National Reclamation Program. But he can see the light at the end of the federal tunnel! This summer, he plans to retire for good and join Pat in their basement brewery full-time. It took more than a decade for Pat to dip her toe into the brewing process. But in 2019, after she retired from a 40-year career as a dental hygienist, she finally had time to give the hobby a try. “I was never a big fan of IPAs, and that’s Pat’s favorite kind of beer to drink,” Scott explains, adding that he’s more of a bourbon barrel- aged Russian imperial stout drinker. “So instead of me trying to make IPAs for Pat, I taught her how to homebrew so she could make her own IPAs!” It was a brilliant idea. Pat fell in love with the artistry of brewing, and soon she was down in the basement all the time playing with flavors. The Ludwigs experimented with new yeasts and hops; fermented batches with fresh fruit; and chopped up old wine barrels to soak in their brews. “To do a smaller batch, we cut up a stave that we had from an American oak barrel, and then I soaked pieces of that in Chardonnay wine and put it into a saison beer and let it sit there
for about a month or two to impart those Chardonnay flavors into that saison beer,” Pat said.
The experiments were huge successes! Today, both Pat and Scott are members of the Rock Hoppers Brew Club, and they’re decorated champions of homebrewing competitions. Pat always makes a point to enter women-only contests like The Queen of Beer Women’s Homebrewing Competition in California and SheBrew in Oregon. Her beers have medaled multiple times in both competitions, and she has even won two prestigious Pro-Am competitions at the Great American Beer Festival! Perhaps her biggest success is “My Fav,” a fruity, tropical IPA that’s crisp and light on the palette. It won a Pro-Am and took first place in the American Standard IPA and Strong Ale category at SheBrew this year. Pat’s Pro-Am winning beers have even been served in local bars. When Scott retires, the Ludwigs plan to keep on homebrewing and travel the country in their refurbished four-wheel drive Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Van. “We’ve already made some plans to do Yellowstone and just start traveling, both in the U.S. and internationally,” Pat says.
Ahh, the joys of retirement. We’ll raise a glass to that!
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