Why do you brew your own beer?

Visited a pub in Prague called U Fleku that brewed the most amazing black lager. I can't get this beer anywhere only Prague so I decided to brew it myself. The only caveat is I had to move to all grain, get a boiler, an Inkbird, buy a fridge and a corny keg set up. It's been the most expensive cheap pint I've ever bought but over time that expense is becoming cheaper and cheaper

On the plus side, I now also brew a decent stout that tastes like bottled Guinness for around 25p a pint.

paulmccre said:

Could someone point me.in the direction of a newbie guide to all grain please ? 35p for a bottle.of beer sounds really appealing lol

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This is how I got started, sadly the member who produced this video has left the forum but it's a great, easy and inexpensive way to get started.

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51779

Mine is partially because I love beer and I like being self sufficient, with Brexit looming I also figure that the price of beer will shoot up so what better time to start experimenting and honing brewing skills. I sort of did the same when ciggies went up beyond what I thought was reasonable so started vaping (4 years ago) and now make my own juices, costs me pennies a month to vape, it would have been costing me £20 a day at todays ciggy prices!

I first started brewing about 25 years ago with beer and wine kits from Boots or O,Donnells chemist on the strand road.To be honest it was curiosity got me started then when I saw these kits in Boots when I was getting blank tapes so we could transfer the latest vinyl and take it with you in the car or on a Walkman.Brewed both wine and beer.First was a John Smith lager and was that bad a taste it had to be mixed with half a can of Harp just so you could drink it.
Did it for a few years then stopped for reasons unknown.Now 20 odd years later decided only a few months ago to start back into it as I have several friends who brew.
Knew nothing about All grain,partial mash,mini mash never mind the endless techniques that have evolved with the help and enthusiasm of everyone in different brewing communities.
Anyway bought a stove top kit with single hop Ella and wasn't till I looked at it when it arrived and realised it was only for 5 litres.No no I wasn't having that.Picked up a can of Muntins light extract from Malachy my mate and ended up with 20 litres of wonderful.Have brewed a few successful and had a few mishaps along the way but the best thing is it never stops cause it's always in the back of your mind what concoctions are you going to brew.
I brewed a batch using Rowan Berry with no hops to get a feel for what it may have been like centuries back using bread yeast and it's something to be desired.So onwards and upwards.Cheers

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Well after going to my parents last night to collect the kids from there wee holiday up there, and having to sit an sup a can of tenants with the step dad. I will stick to my own even if it is just kits for now.

My worst brew tasted better!!☹️️

paulmccre said:

Could someone point me.in the direction of a newbie guide to all grain please ? 35p for a bottle.of beer sounds really appealing lol

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http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51779

paulmccre said:

Could someone point me.in the direction of a newbie guide to all grain please ? 35p for a bottle.of beer sounds really appealing lol

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Paul, I'm getting 35p a pint from kit brewing, but that is buying ingredients when a sale is on. At the moment I'm buying kits full price and its costing me 45p a pint, it's breaking my heart, I'm topping up the FV with my tears.:wink:

I think the reasons why I started brewing are very different to the reasons why I will continue to brew.

Why I started:

- I love beer
- I love to cook, and I thought that brewing would be just like cooking - you get some nice ingredients, you boil them up on the stove, throw in what you feel like, taste as you go along and you can't go wrong.

Why I continue to brew:

- Learning a new vocabulary - I've realised that I know relatively little about beer, and brewing is a way to develop my beer vocabulary and pallet.
- Precision and patience! I'm using skills that I haven't had to hone before, it was actually a nice learning curve to realise I couldn't throw in all the ingredients, give it a taste and take it from there.
- Making things with my hands - my brew blew the airlock for the first time the other day. I had to quickly construct a blow off tube and it might be sad, but I was so proud of myself and it was a strangely thrilling experience.
- This forum - I bloomin' love the forum, and (dare I say it) the geekiness of it all. I love going on the review pages and reading what everyone else got as an OG and comparing it with my notes.
- Bonding with my dad - Dad brewed about 20 years ago so gets the basic concepts. It's great to have someone to patter on to about hydrometer readings, and temperatures.

It's about 90p a for a 500ml bottle for me. Thats 'cos I use extract and lots of hops. but that's still soooo.... much cheaper than a bottle of something tidy from the supermarket. elvis juice, big job, mr. president. even if something I liked was on 4 for £6, that's still £1.50 a bottle (sorry there's nowt in asda's 4 for £5 I like.)

my wheat beer is about 80p to do and my fave german wb's available in the uk weihenstephaner & erdinger (sorry franzikaner - you're not on the list) never any cheaper than 3 for £5.

so having said all that I don't brew to save money - I brew beers I like that aren't available in the shops (8% wheatbeer anyone :lol:) saving money is just a bonus!

I've brewed for over 40 years on and off and I just like the beer. HOWEVER, this forum has got me going on all grain and thats just brilliant, since I do a lot of bread making and the 2 compliment each other IMO. Its really nice to craft something with your own hands, stand back and say "I made that".
The price thing is an issue for me. Down here in the SE the cost of a pint is a kings ransom.

I discovered craft beer last year and love trying different beers. At our work Christmas party last year I was talking to a lad about beers and he told me that he home brews...that planted the seed.

Fast forward to March this year, while scouring the net to try and find out how to brew, I came across this forum...which has been fantastic in helping me learn about the whole process.

In April I brewed my first kit: Young's American IPA...which was a disaster as it somehow got infected. I did a few more kits, the best by far being Tiny Rebel's Cwtch and now do 10L BIAB brews.

I love the process of it and have developed my technique to carry out the brewdays with minimal incident. Doing AG brews gives opportunity to be creative and try many styles.

My project now is to create a fermentation fridge to control temperature because I fancy making a lager at some point. I have the fridge, inkbird and heater...all I need to do now so clean the fridge and butcher it to make my FV fit in it...I shall be doing that this weekend hopefully.

I brew primarily as a hobby. I am always trying to get the 'perfect' brew. But secondarily it is cost - I like the quality of ales and porters I do at a fraction of the supermarket prices

I guess first off for me is following in my Dad's footsteps, for as long as I can remember he always made beer and was quite often dabbling with wine making too.

I started brewing myself when I was a student mostly to get cheap beer. I'd helped my Dad a few times so knew roughly what to do.

Nowadays it's partly due to saving money as I do like a beer or three and even buying from Aldi or Lidl it soon adds up. That said there has been a tendency to spend more money on equipment of late which is probably making the saving negligible. But the other thing is just to be able to make interesting styles of beer and experiment a bit. I still only brew kits due to constraints of time but will one day take the plunge on AG and then it will become more of a hobby with some good benefits.

I'm one of those types who likes making stuff in general, so why not beer? Seems natural to me. It's a great hobby which never reaches a dead end, saves pots of cash and consistently results in copious supplies of far superior ale than the pub/offy churns out. What's not to like? Excuse me whilst I go check see if my homemade vindaloo is ready...

No one has mentioned one of my reasons, I'm lazy.

I've only done kits so far but may do my first AG this week, maybe even tomorrow morning. I'm 45 and have only been doing HB from kits for about 2 years.

Like others I quite like making things. I have an orchard in my garden (3 or more fruit trees is officially an orchard apparently, :smile:) of 4 apple trees, a pear tree, a plum tree and 2 cherry trees and sometimes make things like chutney from them. I wanted to make cider as well which led me to home brewing. I love beer but not a huge fan of cider, I only really like it ice cold in summer when its very hot. So instead of cider I started with beer kits. Even though my beer has a bit of twang I enjoy it as much as a lot of commercial beers.

A kit takes barely any time to do and means I don't have to go out to the shop if I fancy a beer (thats the lazy part). Even an AG is less time overall than going to the shop and spending time choosing which bees to buy every time you want a drink. There are some other benefits such as being cheaper, but thats not a major factor for me. I drink probably a maximum of 8 beers a week and sometimes only a couple. A 40 bottle brew can last me months so only a few brews a year needed. Homebrewing probably saves me no more than £100 a year.

What would really help it take off with me is a decent HB shop nearby.

Like many on the forum I started out doing the old Tom Caxton and Boots kits years ago but soon lost interest due to the poor quality and people opening bottles well before the beers were ready. While living abroad I had a lot of friends who grew up, lived and worked producing wine (and beer) from their own family vineyards in Southern Germany and it was while helping them with the grape picking and production that I really realised how enjoyable it was and how much better quality the end product was than anything available at three times the price in the shops. Fast forward fifteen or so years and a complete change of lifestyle and income due to ill health and I needed a way to be able to enjoy a pint without destroying my limited income and also a hobby which I thoroughly enjoyed. I've always enjoyed researching and making my own version of things I enjoyed but could never enjoy due to price restrictions, usually because of insane tax and duties which is why I used to blend, press and age my own pipe tobacco from raw leaf, now I am into making and experimenting with beer with I have to admit a fairly decent success rate but with a good few mistakes and in hindsight real rookie cock ups. The learning curve though is an enjoyable one and you tend to learn pretty quick when you're learning how to tweek that last brilliant thick tasty stout you just made.