Kyle Green | Roanoke Times

Patrick Kennerley, president of Star City Brewers group, has turned an addition to his garage into a brewing studio.

Remember when Heineken was highfalutin?

Oh, those were the simple days, when BYOB meant a six-pack of Miller Lite or, if you felt like splurging, maybe some Killian’s Red.

As for home-brew, don’t even get Patrick Kennerly started on that syrupy, made-from-a-can stuff of yore — the ones your hyper-cheap and/or hyper-hippie friends used to cart to parties and make you sample.

A lot has changed since Kennerly’s office staff at Roanoke’s Department of Social Services gave him a one-gallon Mr. Beer kit for Christmas back in 1997.

The backside of the house he shares with his wife, Pat, for instance, now sports a “brew room,” a place where Kennerly boils grains and mixes hops in an elaborate setup that has his buddies in the Star City Brewers Guild green as a St. Patty’s Day Guinness.

He’s had nationally certified beer judges go ga-ga over some of his beers, which range from a pale ale made with roasted buckwheat to a holiday specialty ale with cherry-chocolate hints of black forest cake.

“Patrick is about as good as you get as far as home-brewing goes,” says Dan Higgins, a retired chef/restaurateur who lives in Forest and has been brewing his own beer for 25 years. (Higgins even has his own portable triple keg-tapping system, nicknamed Little Winky, which he hauls to home-brewing association camp-outs.)

The guys in the guild — most, though not all, are guys — include Virginia Tech geologists, doctors, computer whizzes and office wonks. They are lefties and conservatives, skinny health nuts and guys with beer bellies.

One member, a Roanoke County lawyer, brings a Breathalyzer to the meetings to make sure no one drives away tipsy. And they’re almost as into good food as they are good beer.

Their mission: to enhance the craft of home-brewing and to promote the appreciation of good beer, hereafter referred to as “craft beer,” which is anything that isn’t made by Budweiser or Miller or the like.

They rent passenger vans and road-trip to Harrisonburg just to go to Calhoun’s, a microbrewery that makes them all drool.

Though they’re no longer affiliated with Microfestivus, the guild helped organizers line up brewers and judges for the popular downtown festival for seven years.

Hang around them long enough, drink a few interestingly named beers, and you can learn a few things about this obsession of theirs.

Here are five things you never knew you needed to know to keep the beer snobs in your life happy:

1. Dogfish Head ale rules. A microbrewery based in Delaware, Dogfish is on the cutting edge of craft beers, guild members say. One of its ales, Dogfish Head 90, is extremely “hoppy,” which is the beer equivalent of spicy.

Beer lovers who love the taste of hops — Kennerly and his wife even grow the vines in the back yard of their Southwest Roanoke home — are called “hopheads.”

“Ten years ago, you had to go to an El Rodeo just to get a Negra Modelo,” says Kennerly. But now you can find an entire aisle of craft beers at most Kroger stores.

2. A local success story: New River Pale Ale, begun by a Virginia Tech graduate student and home-brewer named Kenny Lefkowitz, is now widely distributed and has won national awards. Lefkowitz died at 32 in 2001, but this well-known regional brew — manufactured by Old Dominion Brewing Co. in Ashburn — has expanded rapidly with Lefkowitz’s mom, Judy Luria, at the helm. If you haven’t yet tried craft beer, the brewers guild says, this is an excellent one to begin with.

3. A short history of microbrewing: Prohibition killed most of the 400 small breweries in the U.S., with the main survivors being the Bud/Miller/Coors crowd. But in recent decades, craft brewing has exploded with the launching of 400 microbreweries. “Microbrews are what we call a ‘lower-priced luxury item,’ ” says Cary Bednarek, co-owner of Wine Gourmet, a shop specializing in craft beer, wine and cheese in Daleville’s Botetourt Commons.

Bednarek sells 200 microbrews, with prices ranging from $10 to $16 a six-pack. His favorite is a double Pilsner called Heavy Seas Small Craft Warning, made by the Maryland brewery Clipper City Brewing Co. “It’s like having a Miller Lite on steroids,” he says. (If you want to know more about the nitty-gritty of different styles of beer and taste a few too, check out the Wine Gourmet’s Friday night tastings, 6 to 8 p.m.; 591-2012.)

4. If you want to learn how to brew your own beer, the Star City Brewers Guild can help get you started; for more information, check out its Web site at starcitybrewers.org.

“We’re very much like a wine club, only the difference is, we’re making it ourselves,” he says.

They eat and drink at the meetings, as well as judge each other’s beer and tell horror stories, such as the time Kennerly awoke at 3 a.m. to an exploding batch of fruity beer — and found himself naked and dripping with blueberries.

Blue Ridge Hydroponics & Home Brewing, a store that sells brewing supplies, is at Williamson Road’s Lamplighter Mall; call 265-2483. Other recommended Web sites:

• northernbrewer.com

• morebeer.com

• beertown.org

5. If red wine goes with steak, which ale goes with beef tenderloin? Try a dry English ale — Murphy’s makes a nice one, as does Harp and Boddington’s. Higgins advises: “You want gutsy and great-tasting here, but not sweet.”

“It’s a lot like wine,” Kennerly adds. As the food gets heavier, so should the beer follow suit. Other food and beer combos recommended by Higgins, Bednarek and Kennerly:

• Pasta with a white clam sauce: Try a lighter beer, a Pilsner.

• Fish: a lighter pale ale; Irish stout is good with oysters.

• Heavy Italian food: a dark amber, a porter or a stout.

• Spicy food: A brown beer, nothing sweet; Newcastle Brown Ale, for instance. Hoppy beers complement spicy food well. Kennerly recommends beers such as New River Pale Ale, Dogfish Head and Red Hook IPA for Mexican, Thai and Vietnamese food.

• Beer and chili, “the combination made in heaven,” according to Higgins. Go with an Irish red — but something imported, not Killian’s.

• With dessert: Try a porter or an imperial stout. Kennerly likes to serve Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout atop vanilla ice cream. Brooklyn Brewery makes a Black Chocolate Stout that Bednarek raves about.

For more information on pairings, check out Garret Oliver’s book, “The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food.”