In the summer before the scheduled end of the world, when an army of chronologically challenged computers were said to be readying themselves (and, by extension, civilization) for the great switch-off, my family became intent on preparation, I most of all. And our molding split-level became a bunker in goldenrod and avocado; devoid of luxuries (save for the air mattresses), it had room enough for our accretion of supplies. Beans, canned soup, dried fruit,
chocolate bars, and turkey jerk—all were secreted home in midnight expeditions and stacked chest high in the closets. We hid the guns and ammo underneath our beds and scattered water-filled jerry cans strategically throughout the surrounding woods. These precautions were mostly unremarkable, pedestrian even, and hardly sufficient to sustain us more than a few weeks, but in one regard, I had bested even the nearby farmers, as cautious and sober as they were.

I was the first to think of beer.

After burning through my second percolator of coffee one morning, I realized that we’d need a stronger concoction to see us through Armageddon, and living in a dry county surrounded
by dry counties, keeping more than a single haul’s worth of gin on hand was difficult (and the reserves were rapidly depleted).

When the internet was still little more than a dubious quarter-a-minute novelty—a mighty expensive way to procure porn and conspiracy theories (the former less fascinating to me than
the latter, despite my adolescence)—I learned of the world and all the crap in it through catalogs and shortwave. I bought most of what I owned through the mail, completed high school through it, and almost always having an order out for something, came to anticipate the possibility of what I might receive in it, be it exotic seeds, medicinal oils, or QSL cards from distant stations, with an enthusiasm more remarkable than the goods themselves.

Home brewers are an independent bunch, settled almost everywhere, but concentrated nowhere in particular, and they’ve relied on catalog sales long before the internet came into vogue. Thus, obtaining supplies was easy enough, even without the benefit of a reliable computer. When all the gear arrived, I discovered a more pressing problem: I hadn’t the damnedest idea of how to use it.

Clandestine beer-making is harder than one might think—the process requires surprising amounts of water and even greater amounts of time, all of which make the work difficult to conceal. Yet, fearful of the parched hordes of the upcoming dark ages, I thought it prudent to hide my activities from anyone but closest family, making my development as a brewmaster that much more difficult.

By the end of the year, we were hunkered down and ready, waiting for darkness and for the machines to betray us. Yet they didn’t. And the least prepared suffered no more than the best prepared of us. So much time and effort wasted, I thought. Then I remembered it—I had beer.

Brant Goble is a writer, editor, and (perpetual) graduate student. His works have been featured in Words-Myth, Prick of the Spindle, Burst!, and ken*again. Like Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Brant was born in Louisville.