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ORAL HISTORY

Dan Mouer

James River Homebrewers

Dan Mouer is the co-founder of the James River Homebrewers. Dan fell in love with European styles of beer when he drove around Europe in the 1970s. Dave Line’s The Big Book of Brewing guided Dan’s initial foray into home brewing. He found what few ingredients were available at the time. Eventually, he began to search out a community of other homebrewing afficionados, which led him to Mark Stansbury. Together they formed the James River Homebrewers, a volunteer organization of homebrewers and others interested in the craft. When he was not homebrewing, Dan worked as a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University researching and teaching anthropology and archeology, focusing on indigenous foodways and the American colonial period. His professional interests and recreational interests collided when he researched and made a historic beer recipe from early-1700s Virginia. Dan has stayed involved in the James River Homebrewers off and on throughout its forty-year lifetime.