It all started so innocently. My boyfriend's brother sent him a present--The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing. How thoughtful, I said. A pleasant little diversion for my workaholic darling. O, but verily these thoughts are as bitter to me today as a fistful of Cascade Hops unmollified by the tempering influence of crystal malt.

At first, Jonathan's intensity was cute. He boiled his little pre-packaged baggie of hops, added his malt, poured in his wee bag of pre-packaged grains and sprinkled in his pre-packaged yeast, explaining avidly (as if I cared) the steps of the process. Daily he ran to check his concoction, fretting that fermentation was too slow a-bornin'. I smiled sympathetically -- like Martha Stewart.

The first batch of beer came out dark yet unsophisticated. It was fine. But fine, when you are a perfectionist-science-nerd-with- obsessive-tendencies, is not fine. "Good for a first batch," he said, sipping reflectively. "But it's like making a cake from a mix. The art comes from the creative process, from thinking up combinations and balances of ingredients...." his voice trailed off, and I noted the unnerving gleam in his eye. Suddenly, I was very, very afraid.

Soon we were making field trips to the brewing store in Berkeley. Legions of bored women roamed around the parking lot, eyes glazed, while their husbands and boyfriends clustered inside, vigorously discussing bottle-cappers, siphons and Fuggles vs. Chinook hops. We brought home bottlewashers, hydrometers, and an intriguingly named Charismatic Spoon. Jonathan started calling the bubbles in his carboy "the children." He preferred communing with the brewpot to having conversations, going to parties or going on bike rides. Gott in Himmel, I asked, is there a support group for homebrew widows?

There is certainly a support group for -- how shall I say this -- devotees. The American Homebrewers Association has 23,000 members and estimates that an additional 1.5 million Americans dabble in homebrewing. These folks have clubs, competitions, festivals, resource directories, magazines and cookbooks. They have their own vocabulary, incorporating such words as zymurgy (the science of fermentation), trub (protein sediment) and sparging (straining and rinsing used brewing ingredients to remove spent grains). They spout scary mathematical formulas for calculating the specific gravity of boiled wort. They compare the conditions for fermentation -- temperature, pH, nutrients, oxygen and good initial health -- to the conditions for creation of all forms of life, including our own!

What do I have to look forward to? The AHA says there are at least 20,000 kinds of beer in the world. Jonathan has yet to get to those really obscure optional ingredients, like ginger, lime leaves, walnuts, jalapenos, maple syrup, zucchini, cactus, pumpkin, cinammon, licorice, garlic, spruce, galangal and chicken (the recipe is in The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, which I have now draped in black felt). If he tries that last one, I'm outta here.