It sounds hard to believe, but the pizza-flavored beer Rich Klein brewed seven years ago raised his status on Capitol Hill, where he worked as speech writer for a US senator.

When a piece of pepperoni fell into the wort during his first attempt at homebrewing, Klein and his friends saw it as a positive sign: It would add flavor. That first brew also marked the first step in Klein's determined effort to open his own microbrewery.

Today, neither pepperoni nor any other pizza toppings can be found in beer brewed at Wild Goose Brewery in Cambridge, Md. Klein's association with the brewery - he's founder and vice president - now carries cachet among his higher-ups in government as a symbol of achieving the American dream.

"The Hill's reaction to me was, 'Wait, you're not a lawyer, you don't have a law degree, you're not going to the Junior League fund-raiser. You're going to brew beer. That's cool,'" Klein said. "There definitely was a fascination for it. Everyone I worked for really respected Wild Goose. They wanted someone on their staff who could appreciate the plight of small businesses or entrepreneurs. I can talk about it so it really means something. Senators really appreciate and understand that.

"It has given me a critical eye as well as sensitivity to certain issues. It also has enhanced my ability to write and be analytical and has given me a more authoritative voice."

That voice has earned the respect of former employer Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., for whom Klein wrote speeches a few years ago. Klein said Lautenberg and other Capitol Hill congressional figures see Klein's brewery as a great American success story of a young man who partnered with other people, worked hard to build a business, pays taxes, and prospers.

"One day I got on an airplane going from Washington, D.C., to Newark, N.J.," Klein said. "I sit down, and two minutes later Senator Lautenberg comes up and sits in the aisle across from me. He says, 'How's the brewery? How are you doing?' We get up to leave the plane, he grabs me by the arm, stands back, and tells every person getting off the plane, 'This guy used to work for me. You be sure to drink your Wild Goose beer.' It was nice because he really did think it was a fascinating thing."

Apparently other Capitol Hill staffers were fascinated as well. Klein, who now works for the Clinton administration as speech writer for US Secretary of Commerce Mickey Kantor, boasts a bipartisan staff at the brewery. Employees include a former official for the Energy Department during the Reagan administration and a woman who was the first director of consumer safety under former President Nixon.

They have come together because of their connection with Capitol Hill and interest in brewing to take part in what is now a 75-barrel brewery that distributes in 20 states. Klein describes Wild Goose as homebrewing run amok.

For two years he brewed beer using a five-gallon enamel pot, a plastic fermenter, the requisite Charlie Papazian books, and some trade magazines. Lacking refrigerator space for lagering, he stuck with ales, which he made about once a month on cold, winter nights.

A Little Bit of London

Following a trip to the West Coast, Klein was impressed with the area's microbreweries and wondered if they would catch on in the East Coast. Believing they might, Klein gathered 10 of his high-school buddies and formed a plan to pool their resources. The buddies backed out one by one, but Klein was determined to succeed. Although his mother was skeptical, his father's advice bolstered his confidence.

"My mother said, 'You're 22, you're writing, you're doing well. What do you need to do this for?' My father said, 'The worst that can happen is he'll go Chapter 11. If he doesn't do it, someone else will, and he'll be kicking himself for not trying.' From there it took on a life of its own," Klein said.

Through his job as a reporter at U.S. News and World Report, he heard that the assistant secretary of energy for congressional, intergovernmental and public affairs, Theodore Garrish, was a homebrewer interested in starting a brewery. At the time Garrish oversaw the Energy Department's nuclear energy division. He thought Klein was trying to dig up dirt about him, so he dodged messages.

"Finally I left a message saying it had to do with beer," Klein said. "Turns out we were so in synch. So we started brewing."

Few and far between are the days of making beer at home, but Klein has not strayed too far from his brewing roots. He still concentrates mostly on ales because thatÕs what he enjoys drinking and is used to brewing.

"I spent time in London and had real, cask-conditioned ales. It was like going to Mecca," said Klein.

The beer styles may be Old World, but the brewery is not as traditional in its approach to equipment. Wild Goose recently underwent a $1 million expansion. All the 25-barrel equipment has been augmented by 50- and 100-barrel equipment. The original 7,000-square-foot brewery is now 25,000 square feet.

Klein discovered that brewing, whether at home or on a larger scale, has similarities to writing speeches as well as enough differences to make it feel like an escape from political work. Both are creative endeavors, but brewing produces a product that can be touched -- and consumed.

"You're writing a speech for the secretary of commerce the same way you're brewing a batch of beer," Klein said. "You have to be exacting and meticulous with an eye for detail. That speech needs to be ready when it needs to be, just like the beer needs to be racked, filtered, or bottled when it needs to be. Both allow you to put your personal stamp on something in a very definite way."

On the other hand, speech writing is an inexact science, Klein said. For all its creativity, brewing is a fairly exact science. It is also an activity in which writer's block is never mentioned and results are a bit more concrete.

"I've been a reporter for U.S. News and World Report and a speech writer on and off for the last six years," Klein said. "I love the opportunity to roll up my sleeves, not wear a tie, and have a tangible product to show at the end of the day. If I write a good article or speech, it's words. With beer you can hold something in your hand. Also, it's just fun. I love being in the brewhouse. I love the way it smells. I love the way it sounds. I love the way it looks."

"It's Terrible"

Klein's goals in both speech writing and brewing are the same. Informing the public of issues and legislative goals and promoting candidates are key to speech writing. As a brewer, he wants to promote and teach people about his product and how to make it. In some ways he approaches brewing with the vigor of a campaigner.

"When we first opened Wild Goose, we had one draught account," Klein said. "It was in Washington, D.C., and I took about 10 people there one night and asked for five pitchers of Wild Goose Amber. The waitress said to me, 'Are you sure you want that? It's terrible.'

"My face dropped, and I was around all my friends. I said, 'Why do you say that?' She said it was very bitter and very strong. I gave her my card and said gently, 'We call that full-bodied, we call that malty, we call that hoppy, and this is what beer's supposed to be like.

"She thought I was going to have her fired. I said, 'No, I want to teach you.' This whole process is about education. First it was about how it's okay to drink a beer you never heard of. Then it was about it's okay to drink a beer you can't see through. Then it was okay to drink beer in a style you never heard of. The learning curve has been straight up. It's phenomenal."

Morality, Money, and Moonshine
by Amy Jabloner

Ever since Thomas Jefferson penned the first draft of the Declaration of Independence over a tankard of ale in Philadelphia's Indian Queen Tavern, American politicians have had a love-hate relationship with beer.

"Beer is proof that God loves us," according to one of the country's founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. But beer is not proof that the government loves us. Congressional mandates concerning taxation, regulation, and prohibition have all affected how, what, where, and when Americans can quaff beer.

When the Continental Congress met in the late 1700s, alcohol consumption was about 5.8 gallons per person annually. At least some of it was homebrewed by Jefferson, George Washington, and Samuel Adams; beer was extolled as virtuous and wholesome.

Not surprisingly, alcohol consumption peaked in the United States at about the same time the temperance movement began. In the 1830s the average American drank about 7.1 gallons of alcohol per year. As a result, Carry Nation and fellow temperance crusaders set out to save the moral fiber of Americans by ending the consumption of the devil's drink.

Condemnation of the "evils of drink" eventually led to the "Noble Experiment" of Prohibition in 1920. With the passage of the Volstead Act (a law to implement Prohibition) and the passage of the 18th Amendment, Congress banned alcohol and started the biggest boom in homebrewing the nation had ever seen.

Congressional debates on Prohibition between the "wets" (pro-alcohol) and the "drys" (anti-alcohol) ran the gamut from deadly serious to thoroughly inane. Congressman O'Connell of New York stated during the debate over Prohibition enforcement, "This bill, if enacted, will increase the unrest among our people and leave an open cancer in the body politic into which the Bolshevist and Socialist microbe will crawl." In other words, outlaw beer and the country will go to the Communists.

A 1919 newspaper article on Prohibition enforcement declared that under Prohibition even buttermilk might be banned. Because buttermilk ferments, "abstemious persons who drink buttermilk freely as a beverage did not know with what a menace they were dealing when they toyed with the by-product of the cow."

"Wet" women were also targeted by Congress. Mrs. Margaret Rooney protested Prohibition on the steps of the US Capitol by advocating "personal liberty in this cause, and you can bet your life we'll go to hell to get it." She was denounced by Congressman Cooper of Ohio as "insulting to American motherhood."

The Depression, alcohol-related crimes, and the need for increased expenditures for law enforcement took its toll on Prohibition. The Noble Experiment ended with the passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933.

Most members of Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt openly supported repealing Prohibition and modifying the Volstead Act, ironically, not because they felt prohibition was wrong but because they were desperate for money; the federal government was running a deficit of $4 billion.

The repeal of Prohibition, however, did not mean the end of homebrewing. Even though in 1933 Congressman Sweeney of Ohio believed that the products homebrewers produced were not "comparable to the beverage produced by a skilled brewer, and especially the great industrial brewers of this country," and that, as a consequence, homebrewing would be abandoned.

Due to a congressional oversight, home production of wine was made legal soon after Prohibition, but homebrewing was not. Nearly half a century after the end of Prohibition, homebrewing was finally legalized. In October 1978 President Jimmy Carter signed HR1337, an act to amend the "excise tax on certain trucks, buses, and tractors." Buried within was an amendment permitting homebrewing.

Under the 1978 law single homebrewers within the legal drinking age may brew up to 100 gallons of beer per year. In households with more than one adult, the limit is 200 gallons of beer. Nearly two decades later, homebrewing is legal in a majority of states. (States regulate intoxicating liquors under the US Constitution).

Resistance to the 1978 homebrewing law was negligible. Only three representatives, including former Vice President Dan Quayle, voted against the homebrew bill in the House of Representatives. But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms voiced concern.

According to the ATF, the leftover mash from brewing contains sugar and yeast, which could be used to make moonshine. While introducing a homebrew bill, Sen. Alan Cranston of California facetiously noted that it was a shame that the ATF believed "hordes of phantom moonshiners are lurking in the basements and closets of ordinary citizens who make beer in their own homes."

Beer, once banned and panned by Congress, now again is blessed and honored. National Homebrew Day and Great American Beer Week have both been officially recognized on Capitol Hill. The founding fathers would be relieved that beer in moderate amounts is once again extolled as wholesome. Let's hope the next "noble experiment" will result in the Great American Beer.

Amy Jabloner
Attorney on Capitol Hill

I have been brewing a little less than two years. I bake a lot, and brewing was a natural extension. I like making beer. It's tactile. It is a challenge plus, with the yeast and the grains, it incorporates many things I already know from baking.

During the first government shutdown back in December, I started a batch of chocolate stout, more to keep myself busy than anything. I'm a contractor, which means I don't make money unless I'm working. So it was kind of a difficult time.

There wasn't much I could do, so I started brewing. I was taking my vacation time. I considered calling it Down and Out Stout. It was my first attempt at a stout. It was kind of appropriate because it was dark, and it was December.

It turned out more amber than I wanted it to be, but it was definitely very drinkable. It wasn't quite stout material; it was closer to a porter -- less substantive than a stout. Still, it was good.

Six Idiots Ale
by Rich Klein

Otto von Bismarck, who surely knew something about good beer, said, "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made." Add beer to that warning, at least where the staffers who help write and pass laws are concerned.

Admittedly, this was a first attempt at homebrewing. But you would think that six reasonably smart guys -- Nick, a Senate staffer who handled issues such as banking and commerce; Bob, nicknamed the "Irritable Viking" for simply breaking every Congressional rule of office etiquette while completing a Senate fellowship on environmental policy; Rob, the clinical
psychologist; Tim, the lone "real worlder" among us who worked in finance; Steve, the perpetual graduate student; and me, a Senate speechwriter-- gathered one winter night in a rowhouse on Capitol Hill's North Carolina Avenue with a basic pale ale kit and the requisite Papazian books would put up a decent homebrew batch.

I doubt we could even blame Murphy's Law; after all, everything that went wrong was of our own doing. But what did we know? The books and the kits made it seem so simple. So when I asked, "Has this pot been cleaned and sterilized?" and the response was "I think so...it looks like it..." we were well on our way.

A piece of pepperoni fell into the wort? It would add flavor. Can't get this cold enough? Ah, what's five or 10 degrees? Wait a minute, let's catch the Celtics-Bullets game on TV for a little while. This Anchor Steam is great, wait until our homebrew is just as good. Is the yeast ready? Don't know, but it's just yeast, so it can't be too complicated. Okay, we're done, let's get outta here, we can clean up later.

So was born Six Idiots Ale. Tim and Steve were kind enough to keep an eye on the fermenter and take hydrometer and saccharometer readings. When the lock on the top of the fermenter blew, Steve wiped it off and set it back in place. Then again, at least we had fermentation going.

Bottling was just as haphazard. Nick got us cases of empty Rolling Rock bottles from Garrett's in Georgetown, the bar where he moonlighted. Most got sterilized, I guess; some didn't, I'm sure. Corn sugar was everywhere.

Pepperoni grease on the caps couldn't hurt. Big plans were made: We'll brew five or six styles in the coming weeks, then serve our own beer at a barbecue. This was easy.

And then Six Idiots Ale was ready to drink. That it looked cloudy, even soapy, didn't matter. After all, homebrewing is unsophisticated, we thought: no filtration, no pasteurization, yeast is good for you. That it smelled, well, like nothing wasn't a concern; we'd simply used a kit and underhopped. That Six Idiots Ale tasted like pickle brine and soap and was pretty much undrinkable was a big disappointment.

What followed was the equivalent of a post-vote or post-debate letdown: Where did we go wrong? How did we mess up so badly? Six smart guys, men who help to shape policy and pass laws, could not follow a recipe?

In retrospect it was amazing we were able to coax fermentation at all. But we learned our lessons. Pepperoni -- or any pizza topping -- is a bad additive to wort. Cleanliness isn't next to godliness, it is godliness where brewing is concerned. Yeast is pretty basic, but there is a reason yeast cells haven't evolved much in 10,000 years: temperature, that five or 10 degrees we cut corners on, has a huge impact on them.

All in all, a homebrewing debacle produced some good things. We may still be six idiots, but we've learned a lot about brewing. If you keep an eye on the details, take every precaution, and allow your creative impulses to work within the brewing process, the results are amazingly satisfying.

Too bad the same has not been learned or put into practice in the work of Capitol Hill -- the improvements could be just as dramatic and the results just as encouraging. If von Bismarck had seen us around that homebrew fermenter, he undoubtedly would have included us in his admonition.

Phillip Shipman
Documents Clerk, US Senate Judiciary Comittee

I don't really talk about brewing at work. The only time is if I go have a sandwich during a lunch break with another staffer who knows about brewing. Otherwise I don't really mention it. But apparently word got around.

I take care of witnesses during hearings. Nameplates for witnesses are made down in the service department. I picked up witnesses and went to the service department one day to get their nameplates. I was going through the names and saw that they had spelled out nine. But there were only eight witnesses. The ninth one said, "Phil -- brewmeister."

Bill Bright
Legislative Aide, US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights, and Competition

During the Christmas season of 1994, I decided to try my hand at brewing a seasonal winter ale. The goal was twofold: First to try something new and second to have something different to give friends as a gift.

I used a recipe for a winter warmer that had an old ale base, spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, and orange zest. I had to leave out the orange zest because I couldn't get to the grocery store and was on a tight brewing time frame. In any event, even with the tight time frame brewing went smoothly and the gifts were ready on time. Before leaving Washington for Vermont, I passed out samples as gifts among my co-workers, wishing them all hoppy holidays.

Upon my return to Washington, I was surprised that my brew had been a topic of conversation among five or six of my co-workers. They had been trying to figure out what spices I used in the beer. In fact two close friends spent nearly two hours discussing this while tasting the beer one evening. They arrived at my desk, list in hand of spices they thought were in the beer. This list included vanilla, licorice, and even cumin!

Needless to say, they may have been great at writing legislation, but their tastebuds needed some work.