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RSS FeedHome brewing beer kits: Good for beginners?
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| Yes | 82% | 54 votes | Total: 66 votes | |
| No | 18% | 12 votes |
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Add to FavoritesHome brewing is so much fun and so easy to do, that soon you are looking for something more challenging to brew besides beer.
You will spend hours in brew shops, looking around for which brew you will make, kegs, buckets, bottle brushes, bottles and all the other little goodies which go with brewing.
Depending on which type of brewing you do, you can get rid of the family on the weekend by boiling up the hops etc in an old saucepan on the stove. That stuff smells like rotten hay and will clear the house in no time, so you can be left alone to wash out approximately 50 bottles in the bathtub, then sterilize them in the laundry tubs, then up end them to dry on every available piece of cupboard space in the laundry and kitchen.
When your brew is ready to bottle, you go downstairs to your shed alone to do the most important job all. Occasionally you swear as you break a bottle whilst capping it, but basically the task is done easily and soon you have crates and crates of bottles, complete with date and brew type hand written on little stickers on every bottle. You stack them and note the date you can finally sample the fruits of your labour.
Weeks later, as you sit in the lounge room relaxing watching football, you hear what sounds like breaking glass. You listen, but hear nothing so forget about it. Through the night, you hear it again, and this time decide to visit your brew to make sure all is well. Despair! There on the ground is a menacingly jagged broken bottle neck, still with the cap on. You carefully look around to see several of your precious bottles have become so gassy they have blown out the top of the bottle. This looks dangerous, but you are so excited that something is finally happening in your carefully washed and sterilized bottles! Luckily they are in a downstairs room by themselves, and can't hurt anything else if they explode.
You quietly clean up, purposely forgetting to tell everyone else in the family what you found down there, and go about life waiting for the day you can sample.
Finally it comes, and you have invited your best mate over to sample and slap your back and drink way too much, then tell you how great the beer is and what a wonderful job you did.
The fact that hangovers are rare after drinking home brew means you woke up the next morning feeling great. Because of this, you are now planning another brew, and another, and another, until you have been doing it for years, and are now bored.
You are sick of washing bottles and sterilizing them, sick of capping (although you have bought a new "you beaut" capper which now cuts the time in half). You are sick of writing out little stickers with the date and brew name on them, although you now print them out on the computer. You are sick of cleaning up broken glass- and sick of the family nagging you because they think they are going to get speared with a piece of glass that flies through the floorboards beneath them! Or flies through a wooden door as they pass the room downstairs where the liquid gold is brewing!
So now you see an advertisement saying home brew without the hassle, so you ring it, and you make an appointment, and now your home brewing is no problem at all because YOU don't do it. All you do now is ring up the brew shop and tell them what beer you want, then a week later you take your kegs down there and drop them off. Another week passes, and you rinse and sterilize 2 dozen bottles, take them with you when you disappear from home for a couple of hours, and come back with 2 kegs and 2 dozen stubbies of beer- no foul smell in the kitchen, no broken glass to pick up, no nagging about the dangers of living in the house, no mess, just beer. How much simpler could it be? You would never have known about these places that do all the brewing and hard work for you if you hadn't first started to brew your own! Every beer drinker should brew their own, it adds to the enjoyment of having a drink.
Learn more about this author, Ann Johnson.
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No
The question posted is relatively broad and my intention behind this article is to clarify what circumstances home beer brewing kits are practical for. The actual act of brewing beer at home can be as simple as ordering an ingredient kit online and following the provided instructions. Even first time brewers who have limited experience in kitchens or developing recipes should be able to brew a decent batch of beer. Almost anyone with access to a kitchen can brew beer, but now I would like to examine why one would brew beer.
The first and most obvious answer is that people enjoy the act of brewing beer just as they would cook a meal at home. I believe most people would agree that working hard for something you're passionate about creates sentimental value. Well it may sound odd to some, but I develop this sentimental value with every batch of beer I brew. Whether or not the beer is as high of quality from my favorite brewers such as Dogfish Head and Victory is irrelevant. I find I'm highly satisfied with producing a beer that is somewhat comparable to craft breweries. This is why I brew; this is why I have passion for home brewing.
Putting aside personal satisfaction of creating something I truly enjoy, brewing beer at home is often cost efficient for me. Beer connoisseurs who tend to purchase Indian Pale Ales, Porters, Stouts, and various other complex beer styles can vouch for the price tags attached to a case. Though the prices vary greatly by both brand and type of beer, I often find myself spending upwards of $40 per case. Home brewing, in general, can cut the cost of enjoying these extravagant beers by nearly half. Home brewing is a great way to enjoy well crafted beers while watching your budget.
One final practical use to home brewing I would like to cover is the ability to create your own recipe! This should be the most relevant aspect to brewing beer for true beer fanatics. Through trial and error individuals can craft beer that is not obtainable at a national distributor or their local bar. Brewing a beer from an ingredient kit is a first step for home brewers, but the art of creating your own beer is a truly genuine experience.
Though the question from which this article is derived from is relatively vague, I hope I was able to portray some practical uses for home brewing. Individuals who have a strong appreciation for beer and the act of creating it should absolutely consider brewing their own beer. For those beer enthusiasts who consider Coors and Budweiser credible breweries, I would advise finding another hobby other than home brewing. That is of course, unless you can find brewing kits that create a water-like tasting beer.
Learn more about this author, Kyle Nagle.
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