Hip Hops!

As an international affairs and comparative religion double major at the University of Georgia, David Stein, now 28, took on a new hobby amid his studies. He’d always been interested in beer, having tried a few more styles than your average Natty Light-swilling undergrad and worked a summer for SweetWater Brewing Company in Atlanta. But it was watching a pal mix up a batch of home brew that coerced him to dive head first into the beer world.

“Home brewing was the start of a hobby that has turned into a passion,” Stein recalls warmly from behind the bar of his new full-time employer, Decatur-based brewpub Twain’s Billiards & Tap. “My roommate had been brewing for a few years; he taught me, and I just started helping him, taking notes, trying to understand the process along the way. I stayed awake multiple nights reading online forums and books about brewing.”

After college, Stein held posts all over Atlanta’s booming brew scene, pitching in at retail shops like Decatur’s Ale Yeah! and the Westside’s Hop City, eventually tending bar at Decatur beer mecca the Brick Store Pub. But he tinkered with his home brew on the side: a line of beers that he eventually dubbed Creature Comforts and gave a heavy-lidded mascot illustrated by one of Stein’s friends (still viewable at creaturecomfortsbeer.com). All the while, he continued earning his underground reputation via social media and friends, who Stein gifted with his libatious creations on the regular.

“After four years of making pretty mediocre stuff and learning from the mistakes, my beers just started to click,” he recalls. “All of a sudden, I was like, ‘This is some of the best beer I’ve ever had, and I made it.’’’

Now, following a month-long stint this past fall in Fraserburgh, Scotland, where Stein apprenticed for hip beer maker BrewDog, his hop concoctions are served at Twain’s. Finding Fraserburgh’s drug-plagued culture a bit too unseemly for his liking, Stein returned to the ATL, working around and continuing to fuss with Creature Comforts. When Twain’s revamped its food menu and decided their brewery needed a complementary facelift, Stein’s name came up. (“In Decatur, we’re all a big family,” he explains.) After meeting the Twain’s crew with some foamy samples in tow, an allegiance was born. Since Stein’s hiring as head brewer on Dec. 5, he’s been hard at work on his first menu—his first beers premiered on the menu at the end of last month.

Working on one of his very first styles for the brewpub, an as-of-yet-unnamed India pale ale, Stein walked JEZEBEL through the brewing process, step by step.

The result? A scrumptiously fragrant, turnkey brew that you can be one of the first to enjoy. Cheers to that.