At Eric March's wedding, he welcomed his new in-laws with a nice cold one.
But it wasn't just any generic beer flowing from the tap behind the bar.
Instead, the drink was something fresh from the home-brewing enthusiast's kitchen in his Lansing town house.
Home brewing is a growing hobby for people who want to drink something that cannot be found in the aisles of a local liquor store.
For the last three years, March, an MSU graduate student, has crafted his own beer.
It's not a quick process.
It usually takes him almost two months before March sees a finished product. Whenever he starts a batch, March telephones at least six of his friends, who harass him for beer-making lessons.
Since there is a lot of waiting involved, March said home brewing is better to do when you've got a friend to do it with. On brewing days, friends will come over for lessons and watch the detailed process.
"I'll have two or three other people that come over who want to learn about brewing," he said. "We'll barbecue. It's just a good excuse to hang out with people."
But homemade beer also has other advantages.
"It's a little more cost effective," March said. "Once you get over the initial investment, you're looking at about 30 bucks for two cases. I mean, 15 bucks for a case is a pretty good price. You could probably get Bud Light or something, but you're not getting good beer for that price."
Michigan Home Brewers Guild administrator Charles Psenka, who attended MSU in 1997, said students can be thrifty and improvise on a tight budget.
"You could even make beer in a turkey fryer, as opposed to a hundred dollar system," Psenka said. "You can certainly get creative and do things on a shoestring budget."
March agrees that home brewing can be relatively inexpensive.
At The Red Salamander in Grand Ledge - which sells beer and wine making supplies - people can buy a starter's kit.
A $60 beginner's kit includes a fermenter, bottling bucket, bottle capper, siphoning equipment and a hydrometer, owner Karl Glarner Jr. said.
On top of the beginner's kit, two cases of 12-ounce bottles cost an extra $20, but it is possible to use old, non- twist-off beer bottles as long as the caps are saved, March said.
The ingredients to make 5 gallons of beer cost about $20-$25, Glarner said.
"If you drink it too soon, it's going to be a little weird," March said. "It's going to taste funny … you're going to have 50 bottles of it when you're done, so you want to make sure they're good."
March said people looking to brew their own beer should visit a home brew store like The Red Salamander where they can get advice from experts.
"You can go in there and say, 'Hey I want to make an Oberon clone' and they'll give you all the right stuff," he said.
While March makes his own beer from his town house, MSU students living on campus are not allowed to brew in their dorm rooms.
Angela Brown, director of University Housing, said students would not be able to brew beer in the dorm rooms even if they are of legal age.
"Students cannot cook in their rooms, so I would put (home brewing) under no cooking in the room," Brown said.
For March, he said he wishes more of his friends would partake in his hobby.
"The more people that get into it, the better off I am," March said. "If they find a really good recipe, I can go over and have a couple of theirs.
"You can't go wrong."
Jon Schultz can be reached at schul320@msu.edu.
