The way state liquor officials see it, there may be thousands of bootleggers in Delaware.

The state Alcohol Beverage Control Commission earlier this month dusted off a long-forgotten 1935 state law. Director Donald J. Bowman said the law bans home beer-making, even for personal consumption.

It's OK to make your own wine. But amateur brewers risk fines of up to $5,000, prison terms of up to two years, and the confiscation of vehicles used to carry home-brews. Delaware is one of 11 states without laws that permit home beer-making, according to the Colorado-based American Homebrewers Association.

The state law should be changed, Bowman said. But until it is, he has decided to enforce the current law.

"I guarantee that this ... is going to come as a surprise to a lot of folks in Delaware," said Jeff Ramberg, president of the Bear-based First State Brewers hobbyists club. "There are several thousand home-brewing households in the state."

The hobby is big with chemical engineers and doctors, said Larry Dworsky at Wine Hobby U.S.A., a Stanton-based supplier since 1970.

"They're making these people lawbreakers. Inadvertent lawbreakers," he said.

Liquor official Bowman knew of no Delaware arrests for home-brewing, or even any complaints made to his office.

Until now, that is. An anonymous tipster sent Bowman's office a newspaper clipping about a home-brew contest to be held this month by First State Brewers at Wilmington microbrewery Rockford Brewing Co.

"We haven't gone around looking for people brewing at home, but this was so obvious we couldn't just ignore it," Bowman said.

"Your contest is promoting criminal activity," said an ABCC letter to Rockford owner Marty Haugh.

The contest was canceled. But the buzz about Delaware's stance on home-brew spread fast. "One of our customers came in and told us," said Dworsky at Wine Hobby, which has suspended its Saturday beer-making classes.

First State Brewers this week took down most of its Internet site. Some beer information remains, but "it is in no way meant to condone or encourage the home production of beer," according to the Web site.

"I'm not going to brew anything," said Mark Warrington of Tri-State Brewers, a small Rockland-based hobbyists' club.

"I'l1 follow the law. But I don't agree with it, and I'm going to work to change it."

So will Wine Hobby owner Rick Dworsky, whose father Larry works at the shop. This week, he began collecting signatures on a petition to legalize home-brewing.

Bowman of the ABCC agrees that the law ought to catch up with the times. "There doesn't seem to be any reason I can see it's on the books," he said.

His department would work with hobbyists on a bill to legalize home-brewing for personal consumption, he said. State lawmakers could consider such a proposal when they convene next January.

Still, he said, "there are going to be people who are going to be opposed to it, because they're opposed to alcohol, period. They're going to fight it on a so-called moral basis alone."

Home-brewers "fought this fight in New Jersey. I guess we're going to have to fight it here too," Rick Dworsky said. Under pressure from beer hobbyists, New Jersey amended its state law in 1991 to allow making wine and beer at home.

A 1956 amendment to Delaware's law allows amateurs to make their own wine – which, beer enthusiasts point out, typically contains more alcohol than beer does.

Maryland approved home-brew for personal use decades ago, a state spokesman said.

But Delaware and Pennsylvania remain on the list of states in which home beer-making is "not statutorily recognized," according to the American Homebrewers Association. Federal laws in the late '70s let states rewrite statutes to allow home-brewing.

Representatives for Gov. Carper and the state attorney general, unfamiliar with the statute, said their offices would look at it. The current law raises several questions from its critics.

The statute targets the unlicensed "manufacture" of beer. Unlike Bowman, some argue that term applies only to products for sale, not for personal use.

Also, the law could be read as banning the unlicensed possession of beer-making equipment, and even the unfermented wort from which beer is made. That would outlaw even the popular beer-making kits for beginners, with names like "Beer In A Bag."

Bowman disagrees. "You're allowed to sell the kits, as far as I know. You're just not allowed to use them in Delaware," he said.

Wrote one amateur brewer on the Internet: "I just gotta move to Delaware! If that state is so free from serious crime, crooked politicians and mayhem on the city streets that all the police have to do is harass home-brewers – well, that's where I want to live!"

To Mark Warrington's relief, his hobby is legal after all.

The Brandywine Springs resident had dumped a batch of his homemade beer after Delaware liquor officials decided this month that a 1935 state law banned home- brewing.

"They might just have come to visit me," said Warrington, president of the Tri-State Brewers club.

But liquor agents reversed their stand Friday, after an opinion from the state Attorney General's Office held that amateur beer-making is legal.

"There's obviously a great deal of ambiguity in the law," Deputy Attorney General Larry Lewis said. But "our position is that the statute ... doesn't expressly prohibit home-brewing of beer for personal consumption," he said.

The post-Prohibition law lay forgotten for decades, until the state Alcohol Beverage Control Commission invoked it to head off a home-brew contest planned by the First State Brewers club. The law carries penalties of up to $5,000 in fines and two years in prison.

"Of course I'm happy" with the new decision, said Oliver Weatherbee of the Bear-based hobbyists club. "But I think we'll wait to get the legislation changed" before going ahead with the brewing competition, he said.

The law needs to be clarified, agreed D. Michael Williams of the state public safety department, which includes the alcohol commission. "I'm sure it will be on someone's legislative agenda the next time around," when state lawmakers meet in January, he said.

"In terms of individual rights, it' s a victory for everyone," said Al Gottschalck at Wine Hobby U.S.A., a Stanton retailer of brewing supplies and equipment.

Perhaps thousands of Delawareans have joined the home-brewing trend. Some have gone on to open brewpubs and microbreweries, legalized here a few years ago.

The spread of amateur brewing means more customers, say brewpub owners such as David Dietz of Brandywine Brewing Co. in Greenville. "These people appreciate better beers," he said.