STANLEY - At 8:30 a.m. on a Monday, B.J. Knoke appears to be making the world's largest batch of oatmeal.

Masked against dust upstairs in a red-sided barn, he and his mother, Gloria, look like they could be grinding feed on any of the surrounding farms. They hoist heavy bags of grain, adding 855 pounds of rolled oats, wheat and multiple varieties of barley malt.

The mix, including rice hulls to help with filtration, goes through a roller mill, a device loud enough to discourage conversation and throwing off a haze of dust tinged with the good, clean scent of ground feed and molasses.

An auger carries the elements into a giant copper mash kettle filled with hot water. The grain bill complete and the kettle sealed for an hour, they have finished the first stage of brewing for the company's third batch of oatmeal stout and can finally stop for breakfast. Pop Tarts and coffee. No oatmeal.

B.J. and Gloria, respectively, serve as brewmaster and vice president/manager of Hub City Brewing. Brian Knoke, Gloria's husband and B.J.'s father, is company president.

"We wanted to get rid of our hog business and were looking for another way to generate income," says Gloria of the decision to start a brewery. "We looked at starting a winery, but there are quite a few in Iowa already, plus it takes six to nine weeks to produce a batch of wine." It takes approximately two weeks for beer. "We decided we wanted to do something different."

The rest of the day, to the untrained eye, resembles a shell game. The brewers transfer the fluid from the mash kettle, where most of the sugars and carbohydrates are extracted from the grain, to the lauter tun, another big copper kettle. There, the grains are separated from the liquid. Then it's back to the mash kettle for the final boil.

Two doses of hops add their bitter flavor to the brew, permeating the air with a rich, herbal scent until they are absorbed. Finally, the liquid goes through a plate chiller to cool before joining yeast and oxygen in the fermenting tank to complete the process and become beer.

B.J. will monitor the progress until fermentation is complete. The beer will be ready to bottle in about two weeks.

Some minor spills occur as the liquid moves from kettle to kettle, requiring a certain amount of cleanup.

"I'm as much janitor as brewer," says B.J., washing the floor for the third time. "That's when everyone disappears."

Not that there are many helpers on this particular day. B.J. and his mother can shepherd the beer from one stage to the next and still have time to catch up on other attendant chores.

They squeeze in lunch. Cold cuts, cheese and crackers, Gloria's chili and her mother's custard pie - this really is a family operation - will sustain them through the day.

Cap it

Fast forward two weeks to the bottling room. Dark, quiet and empty on brewing day, five people flow in synchronous movement with the percussion, hissing and clattering sounds of the bottling machinery.

The equipment, a counter-pressure bottle filler to the informed, is an all-in-one bottling, capping and labeling machine of near-Rube Goldberg complexity. Like much of the other brewing equipment, the machine served elsewhere before arriving for duty at Hub City.

The equipment keeps at least four people busy shuttling empty bottles into one end, keeping tabs on the filling, capping and labeling process in the middle, then packing full bottles into cases and moving cases onto pallets. Most of a day is needed to finish the entire batch of beer, but by the end, the 465 gallons of oatmeal stout are ready for delivery around Northeast Iowa.

In the tradition of many craft breweries, Hub City grew from a runaway homebrewing hobby. The spark was a Mr. Beer kit, a Christmas gift to Brian in 2001. Weekends spent experimenting on recipes with B.J. - 50-plus variations in all - eventually gave rise to thoughts of starting a brewery.

Opportunity and "partial insanity" developed when the family learned about a complete setup from a defunct brewpub in Cincinnati. Brian took the leap and bought the equipment.

The machinery sat in storage for two months while the family gutted, cleaned and refurbished a building on their property once used as a hog nursery.

B.J. took a chance, too, quitting a job installing fireplaces and heaters in Iowa City to become brewmaster. It didn't take much prompting from Dad.

"He asked. I agreed," B.J. says.

Craft beer

The tanks were in place by June 2007. After completing plumbing and electrical work, Hub City brewed its first beer, a wheat variety, on Nov. 14.

Hub City is expanding its range of products, which currently includes golden ale, wheat, brown ale and oatmeal stout. The effort is aimed squarely at the growing craft beer market, which is loosely defined as breweries that are small and independent.

"Our buyer is a little older - though some college kids are into the craft brews - a little more adventurous and looking for different kinds of flavors," B.J. says. "My favorite is the stout."

Matt Van Ee, manager of Cedar Falls Hy-Vee Wine and Spirits, sells Hub City brews and says public response has been positive.

"There seems to be good support for a local brewer. We're getting repeat customers. The wheat is the best-seller here, so far," he says.

Hub City's brews are primarily available in eastern Iowa, but the Knokes would eventually like to reach into close neighboring states, such as Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois.

For now, the family is taking it slow and seeing how things go. They are planning a grand opening at the brewery on June 28 with food, a band and, of course, beer.

As a homebrewer and founding member of the CRAZE home brew club in Cedar Falls, Ben Schafer appreciates the Knokes' rise to commercial production.

"Anybody who has tried homebrewing knows how difficult it is make a beer that tastes exactly like you want it to," says Schafer, who notes Hub City is putting out four "really tasty, flavorful beers."

"Anyone who does it seriously eventually dreams of doing it professionally. Most only dream," Schafer says. "I commend them for taking the step. That's a fantastic thing."

Contact Brandon Pollock at (319) 291-1476 or brandon.pollock@wcfcourier.com.