Gary Wirt needed something to do when he retired from his job as a commercial airline pilot and moved to Bend in 2005.

So he flipped through the Central Oregon Community College course catalog until he found a class that caught his eye. It was Beer Brewing 101.

“I thought, ‘Well, this could be kind of cool,’” the 68-year-old Wirt said last week as he converted a chest freezer into a four-tap kegerator to store his homemade beer.

Though it may seem like a hobby reserved for the young and hip, home brewing has certainly found its niche among Central Oregon’s baby boomers and seniors who not only like to drink good beer, but also have the money, time and space to make it at home.

Many, like Wirt, are keeping their home-brewing activities limited as a hobby.

But others, including the three family members who are behind Rat Hole Brewing, hope to take their beer-making abilities as far as they can go.

“Once you start brewing, you’ve got to make a decision as to what you’re going to do,” said Ken Deuser, 54, the marketing director for Rat Hole Brewing, which is opening a brewpub near Bend’s Old Mill District next month. “We all came to a mutual conclusion that it was time to put this hobby into a business mode.”

The hobbyist

Wirt joked about how he wasn’t the only “gray-haired brewer” in the room when the Central Oregon Homebrewer’s Organization held its June meeting and social hour at the River Canyon Estates Clubhouse last week. In fact, about half the club’s nearly 80 members are 50 or older.

“We have a few people who are in their 20s,” Club President Tom Brohamer, 51, said. “But we’ve lost a couple because they had kids.”

Brohamer said one reason his club’s membership skews toward baby boomers — people born between 1946 and 1964 — and seniors is because they are less likely to drink whatever cheap beer they can find than people who are younger, in college or just starting out their careers.

“When we get older we start to appreciate better beer,” he said, adding the ability to enjoy good beer is crucial to the ability to make it.

Brohamer also said people in their 50s and 60s have more time on their hands because they’ve either retired from their jobs or don’t put as many hours into working as they used to, and their kids, if they had any, are out of the house.

Having this extra time helps a lot considering making a typical batch of beer requires about four to six hours of work on the stove alone.

The brew must then be stored in a temperature-controlled area for a couple of weeks as it undergoes its first and secondary fermentations, Brohamer said, so it’s helpful if home brewers have a lot of space to store their equipment and beer.

This type of space — which usually takes the form of a garage, basement or spare room- can be a luxury for younger people who may share an apartment, and for young parents.

But while home brewing can be a great hobby, especially once someone realizes that making beer is cheaper than buying beer, it does have its drawbacks.

“Once people know that you brew beer,” said Tim Koester, 65, who teaches COCC’s home-brewing courses. “They want you to bring it to their next party.”

Koester said that cost can be another issue. While the basic starter kit costs $50 to $70 in some catalogs, the more advanced pieces of equipment – burners, kettles, chillers and fermentators- can be quite expensive.

“It becomes an obsession,” Koester said. “You start buying this equipment, and the next thing you know you’re opening a brewery.”

The brewery

When he moved to Central Oregon in 2007, Deuser took a job running human resources for the Macy’s department store in Bend and was shocked to see dozens of people who were his age or older with job applications in their hands. Many had either been laid off from their previous jobs and couldn’t find work, he said, or had tried to retire early only to see their retirement and investment accounts disappear when the global financial crisis swept across the country one year later.

It was a situation that became all too familiar for Deuser when he lost his job in February 2009.

“After two years of trying to find work, I threw in the towel,” said Deuser, who couldn’t find a job even though he had plenty of experience.

He knew he could have enjoyed a somewhat comfortable retirement with the pension he earned through his 25 years of service in the U.S. Navy, but he wasn’t ready to do that just yet and decided it was time to launch one final endeavor.

During this time, Deuser’s brother-in-law, Al Toepfer, 62, was working at a Seattle-area dealership. He was also perfecting his home-brewing technique and making a name for himself by taking home top prizes from western Washington’s Evergreen State Fair and the Washington State Fair in Puyallup.

But Toepfer’s career/retirement plans also took a sharp turn in 2009 when he hurt his back. Toepfer and his wife later moved to Bend where his other brother-in-law, Les Keele, owned a ranch on the outskirts of town.

This was when Rat Hole Brewing was born.

“My brother-in-law said, ‘You know, maybe we could start a brewery down here,’” Toepfer said as he stood in a renovated 700-square-foot shed on Keele’s farm that now houses Rat Hole Brewing’s equipment. This shed used to be full of rats, thus the name Rat Hole.

“And I thought,” he continued, “Maybe we could.”

Rat Hole Brewing has swept across Central Oregon’s beer scene since this conversation in 2010 — which Deuser said came about when he and his brothers-in-law realized all three of them were bored, broke and loved beer — and its beer can be found at local bars and grocery stores.

Deuser said the three brothers-in-law are now making headway on converting Old Mill Brew Werks’ former location (the Old Mill pub moved to a new location this spring) into their own brewpub that will feature Rat Hole’s beers and southwest cuisine.

“I just came along for the ride,” Deuser said. “And this is just too much fun to let go.”

Home brewing 101

Want to get your start in home brewing? Here are a few places to start:

* Central Oregon Homebrewers Organization

A group of about 80 home brewers who meet on the third Wednesday of each month at the River Canyon Estates Clubhouse in Bend.

To learn more: www.cohomebrewers.org or email tom@MyBrewPal.com.

* Central Oregon Community College

COCC offers a few noncredit community learning courses teaching people how to make their own beer.

To learn more: www.cocc.edu or call 541-383-7270.

• Home-brewing equipment retailers

People looking to buy brewing equipment and supplies can visit:

• The Brew Shop, 1203 N.E. Third St., Bend; or,

• Redmond Craft Brew Supply, 235 Sixth St.