Peter Oates was making a lot of trips to Vermont. As a beer lover, he had been captivated by the hoppy ales coming out of the Green Mountain State and was driving up to stock up his car and drive back home. Soon enough, the regular trips to Hill Farmstead Brewery, The Alchemist, and Lawson’s Finest Liquids started putting strains on his relationships—both work-wise and personal. It was then that his friend Ricardo Petroni suggested Oates take up homebrewing.
“Make the beer yourself,” he said, “and you can avoid having to take these 13-hour trips. And you can make the beers you like.”
The pair are MIT graduates and professional scientists who have worked on complicated projects in sophisticated labs, so it’d be unreasonable to think that Oates would simply head to his nearest Bed Bath & Beyond and grab a Mr. Beer kit.