It was the early 1990’s and I was on a roll. Even though I was just a beginner at homebrewing, I was making pretty good beer. I started with kits that went into bottles. It was drinkable and so far I had not hurt anyone. I liked it and so did my friends and neighbors.

It was around that time that I discovered I could make root beer at home, too. I had two kids who liked root beer. We had a lot of kids in the neighborhood who would like root beer. I liked root beer. It just seemed like a natural thing to do at the time.

To make said root beer, I bought a small plastic bottle of root beer extract I found at the grocery store, thinking, “wow, two whole cases or more from that little bottle.” I picked up some Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast to go with it and I had a great project.

The process was pretty straightforward. Boil five gallons (19 L) of water, add four pounds (1.8 kg) of sugar, add the extract, add the yeast, let it ferment for a day, then bottle two cases and wait for carbonation. What could go wrong? All went well. Tasted fine at the bottling, so then I just had to be patient.

Several nights later, asleep in bed, I awoke to a strange noise. I asked my wife, “What was that?” I heard it again. And again. I got out of bed and walked through the house. There it was again. Pop! Pop!

As I approached the back of the house, near the brewing room, I began to smell ... what is it? Root beer! Oh no!

When I got to it, I found the brew room completely soaked with root beer. The floor was wet, the ceiling above the cardboard cases was wet, and there was glass everywhere too. I knew what was happening immediately . . . bottle bombs! This was serious. I quickly got dressed and tried to figure out what to do.

This was clearly a dangerous thing, the glass, the exploding bombs — but it was funny too. Hilarious in fact, but something had to be done.

I decided I clearly could not just reach into the cases and grab the unexploded bottles. That would be a recipe for serious cuts, and the mixing of blood and root beer did not seem appealing in the least.

Then I had an idea — a cover, of course! I ran to the garage, got a handful of shop towels and came back to the brewing room. I covered both cases with two or more towels and waited. All quiet.

I gently moved the first case to the garage, then the second. So far, no more explosions. Success was mine.

The next morning, after a lot of careful cleanup in the brew room, I had to deal with those remaining cases of bottle bombs waiting for me in the garage.

You know, some things are just best done in private. At times, a project like this may require adult language, or at least some solitude. However, the neighborhood kids, of course, had to gather around. They had to get really close to see what was going on. Had to ask a lot of questions. Had to be shooed back to a safe distance. “Why is there root beer running down the driveway Mr. Stovall?” “Why is there glass everywhere?” “What is that noise?”

Trying to get a bottle opener on a bottle bomb is not a lot different than those old WWII movies where the sweating guy has to cut the red wire on the torpedo —or was it the blue wire? I finally figured out how to put the crown cap lifter on the top of the bottle and then cover the thing with a towel while it is still in the cardboard case then open it up.

Do you know how much foam a 12-ounce bottle of root beer can make? I can tell you it makes enough to smell up the whole garage. A dozen or more will make enough “sticky” to make your tennis shoes squeak until you throw them away.

In the end, I survived. The kids thought it was high comedy, no injuries were recorded (except to my ego) and the experiment was a learning process. The moral of the story? Be careful when playing with yeast and sugar!