With the prices of hops climbing and the cost of a six pack of beer hovering around $10, more and more people are turning to brew-your-own solutions.

Nathanael Jones is the owner of Humboldt Homebrew, located behind the North Coast Co-op in Arcata. Jones said that hops farming has decreased drastically over the past several years, with developments being built on farm land.

He said that both Europe and New Zealand, both of which export a lot of hops to the United States, have had terrible yields this year and supply has gone down.

As the prices climb and some strains become more difficult to find, farmers have started planting more hops. Unfortunately, Jones said, the first harvest of hops isn’t good and it takes a couple years to get a good crop. So their shortage will last for at least a year.

Humboldt Homebrew opened Dec. 7, 2007. In his store, you can find everything you need to start brewing your own beer and other beverages as well. “This community is really do-it-yourself-oriented,” said Jones.

In order to start a home brew, you need a large brew pot. Most people have that in their kitchens; it just has to be stainless steel and at least five gallons.

Everything else can be purchased in a kit that Jones put together. The kit includes two large glass jugs (carboys) for the fermentation process, tubes, funnels, a thermometer, plugs, a bottle cap squeezer, among other things. The whole kit costs $109.

Once you have all the hardware, you need the raw ingredients — Jones suggests that a first-time brewer pick up a kit. It has all the right amounts to make a batch of beer, and you get to pick the style of beer you want and it usually comes out tasting like what it says it’s going to.

“Most people will do a couple batches with the kit, then bring in recipes and we have the ingredients right here in bulk.”

Jones has malted barley extracts as well as the barley grain. The grain is all starches and needs to be broken down into sugar, by boiling and mashing, in order to be fermented. The syrupy extracts are already in the sugar form and ready to ferment, saving some time and energy.

Jones also has several varieties of hops available to give the beer bitterness and aroma.

Growing hops yourself is another option. There are several strains of coastal hops that will do fine in the colder coastal climate.

Troy Perez, been home-brewing over four years. “It was pretty darn easy; all you need is a five-gallon pot, a carboy and a funnel.”

It’s been good every time but once so far. Before the price hike, you could make a batch for about $30 and yield a little over 220 beers. The average is 55 beers for every five gallons and a batch is usually about 20 gallons.

“Now it’s double the price, or close to it.” Perez has slowed down production with time constraints and price hikes. It is still more cost effective to buy your own, “You can get it down to around 25 cents a beer, if you do a whole grain batch.” Using the malt extract will cost more.

Perez encourages people to get into home-brewing, “It’s a great social event, there’s more to it than cracking one open from the store.”

To get people going, Jones offers a free home-brewing class once a month. The next one will be May 15 at 6 p.m.

Jones just touches on some of the basics of home-brewing. Jere Cox teaches an in-depth, four-session class about home-brewing at Mad River Brewery in Blue Lake. Cox has won best of show home brew at the Humboldt County fair for eight years in a row. “The thing I enjoy the most is making a commercial quality beer that people will enjoy,” said Cox, who said he likes giving his brew as gifts.

Mad River Brewery was born out of a home brew operation, as were most micro breweries. The brewers that work at Mad River also brew their own beer at home because they enjoy the flexibility home-brewing gives them. Head brewers Dylan Schatz said, “Working with the various ingredients the possibilities are endless.” When brewing commercially, it has to taste a certain way, home brews can taste different each time.