About two years ago, Kevin Cosentino was a just regular guy.

In terms of beer, that is.

If he and his friends wanted beer, they’d drive down to the local store. They’d shell out a good amount from their wallets — it was expensive beer — so that they could take it home and pop open a few.

It was during this last step — the drinking part — that Cosentino, a senior in computer science, and a friend decided to try and brew their own beer.

They hit up American Brewmaster, a store in Raleigh that sells everything from hops to labels to kegs, with a basic starter kit and an included recipe.

“We were pretty happy with how it turned out,” Cosentino said. “From there I basically got my hands on anything I could read [about brewing]. I read countless books, articles.”

“I was just basically trying to learn as much as possible, and over time I guess I’ve gathered all this crap over here,” he said, gesturing to the bona fide home brewery that occupies the space that could once be considered a breakfast room.

The brewery is neatly cluttered with, among other things, glass jugs, a cooler, a large metal pot and a spiral, copper wort chiller. On the right-hand side, two large jugs of soon-to-be cider sit under boxes. The metal pot, used during the first step of brewing, sits in the center of the room.

On the left, above a cooler filled with three kegs, hang awards and medals he’s won for his home brews — including a first-place ribbon from the first competition he ever entered.

His most recent acquisition is a gold medal from the National Homebrew Competition, the largest beer competition in the world. This year, the American Homebrew Association, which organizes the competition, had a record number of entries — 1,308 brewers across the nation, and a few from Canada and Japan, entered a total of 5,644 beers for judging.

That’s an 11 percent increase in both categories, according to Janis Gross, the National Homebrew Competition director and the American Homebrewers Association project coordinator.

And Cosentino is not alone in his passion for brewing. It is estimated that there are half a million active home brewers in the United States, according to Cindy Jones of the American Homebrewers Association.

Hops, skip and a gold medalAlthough Cosentino’s commercial beer purchases are significantly less than they were before he started brewing, he does venture to the beer aisle every once in a while — but only to compile information for an original recipe.

In writing these recipes, Cosentino compares ingredients of beers similar to the one he has in mind. He’ll try to find a common ingredient in beers that have the best overall flavor and incorporate it into his recipe. For technical steps, such as at what temperature to mash the grains and how much yeast to add, Cosentino consults directions for brewing similar beers.

And he took a big risk with the recipe he used to make the Belgian Specialty Ale he entered in the National Homebrew Competition.

Brewers usually use strains of saccharomyces, Latin for sugar fungi, as yeast in their beer’s fermenting process.

But to brew this pale beer, Cosentino chose to ferment his beer using two wild strains of brettanomyces, which is located in the saccharomycetaceae family but usually considered a contaminant that produces “all the flavors that are not what you desired” in a beer.

“I thought it would be neat to ferment a beer just with this yeast and see what kind of flavors I could get,” he said.

Due to brettanomyces’ unique by-products, Cosentino said it was difficult to gather examples from commercial beers.

“I didn’t really have a lot to go by. There aren’t that many people who have tried this before, so it was sort of an experiment,” he said. “I read some books and just gathered up all the information and made an educated guess and a recipe, and I went for it.”

If, after brewing a beer, Cosentino thought his product was “a clunker,” he’d find the root of the problem and alter the recipe. As his own worst critic, he won’t accept a beer that’s even a “little off.”

But he didn’t have to change this recipe. Although there were still some uncertainties in the process, the ale was successful on first try.

Cosentino fermented his ale for four weeks, though going into it he “didn’t know how long it was going to take.”

“I went ahead and bottled it and stuck it in my closet for a little while,” he said. “After a month or so, it turned out very good.”

Over time, the ale’s flavor changed. The “really fruity” flavor disappeared, replaced by a dry, carbonated “earthy funkiness.” With each new change to his beer, Cosentino said he liked it more and more.

It was this beer he presented at the National Homebrew Competition’s first round in Raleigh a few months ago. He was among the list of posted winners — out of the 317 Belgian Specialty Ales that were entered into the competition in Raleigh and in nine other regions, Gross said only 27 were selected for judging in the second and final round in Cincinatti, Ohio.

Cosentino was one of those 27.

The entries submitted “to the final round represent the best of each region,” Gross said.

Although he didn’t go to Cincinatti, he found out via e-mail that his ale had won the gold medal in the Belgian Specialty Ale category.

“By winning a gold in that category,” Gross said, “this person has come out on top as having the best of the best in beers.”

A new career path?Cosentino doesn’t plan on ditching his computer science degree in favor of his own brewery.

In fact, he doesn’t even know if owning his own brewery will be something he’ll do in the future.

For the moment, brewing is a hobby — one that allows him to both perfectly match his beer to his preference and save money.

“I’m at the point now where I have so much beer here,” he said, adding that he gives away more than he drinks on his own. “And I don’t buy as much. Once you get all the equipment, it’s actually cheaper for me to make it than buy it.”

What he would pay $10 for in the store would take about $25 to make a six-gallon batch.

And, as another plus, he knows a whole lot about beer.