Brewing up a local fervor for the fermented is Merry Growlers of Davis founder Mike Matiasek and his posse of beer-loving cohorts. Early this year, Mike and fellow Merry Growlers Andy Gray, Francis Corbett, Christian D’Souza, Danny Dineen and David Bosworth took to the Experimental College Community Garden in order to cultivate the hop plant necessary to create the flavor and stability of beer. Since then, the men have also cultivated a shared reverence for the art and science of homebrewing beer, and a desire to share their passion with the wider Davis community.

Merry Growlers of Davis (growlers are glass jugs used by homebrewers for carbonating and storing beer) is in fact a subgroup of the Greenbelt Brewers Association, an AHA-recognized club of homebrewers stemming from Solano, Yolo and Sacramento counties. Mike maintains that the association is a source for learning, education and socializing - a place for beer-minded individuals to swap ideas and equipment.

As for Merry Growlers, the members of this informal club enjoy the relative ease and inexpensiveness of their pursuit. They pay only $25 a year per plot of land, and visit their hops weekly for harvesting and