Who brews all they drink? Who still buys beer?

So, I got into this in late August. I went straight to kegging, with the intention of only drinking what I brew.

I've managed to not go to the liquor store for beer at all since Sept 1. So far my plan is working. I brew 5 gal each week, (with occasional 10 gal weeks).

Just wondering...how much beer do you buy vs. make?

When I am at home I almost exclusively drink homebrew but a lot of my drinking is done in bars where I'm obviously not drinking homebrew so I answered 50/50. When I go to friends houses I will often bring some homebrew but will also sometimes just pick up some craft brew on the way.

Brewing constantly can be a bit of a grind and really cuts in to my weekend. I'm trying to brew more 10 gal batches so I get more out of each brew day, but there are lapses and I will often go to the store for some brews. Not to mention I love trying new beers and finding out what I might want to try making next.

It's hard not to buy craft beer that I have loved for a long time just because I make beer. Usually it is only a 6 pack every 3 weeks or so though. The rest is homebrew.

I like to buy sometimes to try different kinds... i dont have any one around that i know that brews, would be nice though, to have more variety. but i am the only one who drinks in my house so 5 gal goes along way so i dont have much variety in my own brews, about 3 types in any given time.

I almost never buy bottles of beer. Typically I only buy when I travel out of state and usually in the name of research, seeking out examples of styles I'm going to brew.

Friends will occasionally bring over a 6 pack of something, and it typically will sit for a good while. I hate to admit it, but I'm now mostly too lazy to want to bother with opening a bottle. Instead I can just walk over and have my choice of 4 beers on tap. Why would I bother grabbing a bottle and opening it, and then pour it into a glass? I mean, that's like 10 seconds I could have been drinking!

If anything, homebrewing has caused me to buy more commercial beer. I have 2 taps in my kegerator. I cant pass up the huge selection at the local stores.

It depends on my pipeline, mostly...if I am well stocked I will usually drink mostly mine, but maybe pick up a couple bombers if I am in the mood for something that I don't have. But like now, pipeline is low becasue I didn't get to brew much this summer, and most of what I have is the wit and the saison I did get to brew, I am now in the mood for more heavier beers....and IPAs, so it's been buying.

To me there are just too many great beers out there not to want to try them..Plus like I said, sometimes I just want something different than what I have on hand.

One thing I do is I go to places that do mixed 6'ers of craft beer. That way I can explore different versions of a favorite style and to stretch my beervocbulary by trying new ones. That way it give me more ideas for future brews. It was doing that that I discovered that I like Belgian Wits last year after they had a couple hoegaardens in the mixed sixer fridge.....

I drink to much and brew to little. 1/3 homebrew 2/3 commercial. I have a keggerator and a pool, so in the summer we go thru 15.5 gal of beer every other week. I don't have enough kegs yet to keep up with the drinking. I also have to go to 10 gal batches.

I drink probable 6 home brews to every 1 store bought...I havnt bought anything but pop top bottles since I started brewing. So I guess I am buying the bottles for my personal use, and I've gotta do something with the ber inside, right????

I buy beer every now and then to test out a style or simply cause I want a style that I dont have on tap. Also any time I am at bars I obviously am not drinking home brew.

So I'm the only one who buys more than I make? I do about one 5 gallon batch per month. That does make a pipeline but the pipeline always has a 2 week dead spot in it. That's what I consider research time. And when it comes to research, those guys in Palo Alto have nothing on me. I'm trying to move up to a 10 gallon system so we'll see if that affects my research any.

When I'm going to brew, I go buy a case that is a commercial style version of my batch. I'll drink that pretty much exclusively so that I can make direct comparisons when mine is kegged. I will then adjust the recipe as needed.

At home it's mostly homebrew with the occasional store-bought sour. At a friend's it is something from the bottle shop.

However, the majority of my consumption takes place in taverns.

I buy almost no beer now-a-days. I used to buy 1 craft 6 pick and have that last me Friday & Saturday.

Obviously BMC doesn't interest me.
I don't like the over-hopped trash that disguises itself as craft beer.
And the european stuff I don't want to drink because I don't believe it can be at all fresh.

So it's pretty much something extremely local, an SNPA or my own. My own is free and already at home so it wins about 90% of the time.

When I first started (early this year) I went on a spree of trying every craft brew i could find, to see what it was I wanted to brew. Since the summer though, I think i have brought maybe only 2 or 3 six packs, and drink mainly just my own.

Probably half my drinking is at bars or restaurants.

Probably 2/3 of my drinking at home is my stuff.

I absolutely do not have the belief that my beer is better than all of the commercial beer out there. I do not view drinking commercial beer as some sort of compromise.

I really only drink commercial brew when I'm at the the bar or a friends house, but I really only ever buy beer at the bar because I'll be damned if I don't get a couple brews on the house when I'm at a friends considering the amount of my beer they have consumed. Other than that it's only out of town getting a bottle of something rare that I can't get at home.

I started home brewing about 6 months ago when I was finishing my basement because I knew there would soon be a bar to drink at. I bought the first 4 bottles since I started just the other night because I was in the mood for something different. Two of them were all right, one I just couldn't finish and one was an old favourite that is still an old favourite. I had a pint of Rickard's white last night that used to be a favourite of mine and all I could think is that my clone was better and I think it is one of my least favourite homebrews.
I think I will keep buying the occasional bottle just to see the different styles and what I may want to give a try on my next brew day.

I will drink my homebrew exclusively when I can brew as well as the best brewers int he world...... yeah not soon.

I probably have 40 different beers at my house at any given time plus 3-4 homebrews. It is rare for me to have the same beer twice in two days. I think I would die without a lot of variety in my beverages. I will never be an all hb guy.

I drink about 90% homebrew. I buy craft beers that are new, unusual, etc.

I like to think I'm about 50/50 right now. I'd prefer that I was drinkin more home brew than commercial, but I'm still trying to dial in my system and pipeline. It's too tempting to do experimental brews that end up sitting for a long time. As everyone has said, there's research to be done and I can't pass up some personal favorites. I finally got my hands on some Dogfish Head Burton Baton after a hard summer's search. Interestingly enough my opinion of it has changed quite a bit. I still think it's a great beer, but now I'm motivated to attempt a version that suits my tastes a little better.

Also going out to drink means buying commercial. I love going tothe local brew pub to try their specialty brews. They keep a chalk board behind the bar listing what's in the fermenters that makes me plan return trips.

One cool thing is that the town I live in is a dry town so I can bring home brew with me if we go out to eat. Of course, we usually just drive the extra couple minutes to the brew pub anyway

I buy commercial beers to try other styles and what not.

I'm about 50/50 right now. Part of it is because I'm collecting bottles and trying to get the pipeline filled up. I'm aiming to do at least 2/3 homebrew once the pipeline is full.

I should also make mention I have about 4-6 months worth of beer in my pipeline now.

Being a poor college student, the only way I can afford to drink craft brew is if I create 90-95% of it. I have "paid off" almost all of my equipment, but I love brewing so much I dont care if thats where most of my disposable income goes. I now exclusively buy single craft beers, mostly bombers. I figure I need to taste other peoples for ideas and inspiration.

I'm working on it. I don't have much stock of homebrew right now but I'd like to get to a point to where I only drink bought beer when I'm out.

i usually drink most of mine, but definitely pick up a few bottles here and there of craft's that sound intriguing/i want to try out. I havent bought a case in ages though, and mostly its bigger corked bottles.

I do drink more then I did before brewing though...

Edcculus said:

If anything, homebrewing has caused me to buy more commercial beer...

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Same here. Homebrewing and reading this forum has opened me up to many more styles. Also, I typically brew about once a month, since starting this summer, so it's difficult to keep enugh homebrew on hand to keep pace with consumption (mine and guests).

There wasn't really an option for me. I only pay for homebrew to make. I do drink other beer but never buy it. I often times bring homebrew to my friends houses, then get their craft beer in return. So I just put down "I only drink what I brew" since it was likely the closest answer for what you were going for.

Swapping is really a win, win. I get to talk about beer, which I love. I get to try great beer, which is also quite enjoyable. And, is cheap. Nothing like swapping 75 cent bottles for 3 buck bottles.

BioBeing said:

I went on a spree of trying every craft brew i could find, to see what it was I wanted to brew. Since the summer though, I think i have brought maybe only 2 or 3 six packs, and drink mainly just my own.

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Hmmm I went through a stage like that too. As a consequence I am not a huge fan of craft brews. There are plenty of good ones sure, but at the risk of getting hounded down here, I found that far too many craft brews are just trying WAY too hard to be distinctive/trendy/wild, whatever.

I don't have the cash to waste on someone else's experiments. I'll buy stuff from Great Lakes because it's always good and I can use the bottles, but apart from the very occasional foray into other craft beers, I'm about done with them.

cford1 said:

There wasn't really an option for me. I only pay for homebrew to make. I do drink other beer but never buy it. I often times bring homebrew to my friends houses, then get their craft beer in return. So I just put down "I only drink what I brew" since it was likely the closest answer for what you were going for.

Swapping is really a win, win. I get to talk about beer, which I love. I get to try great beer, which is also quite enjoyable. And, is cheap. Nothing like swapping 75 cent bottles for 3 buck bottles.

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Yeah, close enough.... I mean, I checked "I only drink what I make", but I can't bring my beer to restaurants, so that's when I try new ones, and I can't bring my beer on brewery tours, (mite bit pretentious anyway), so I get to try those to

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Hmmm I went through a stage like that too. As a consequence I am not a huge fan of craft brews. There are plenty of good ones sure, but at the risk of getting hounded down here, I found that far too many craft brews are just trying WAY too hard to be distinctive/trendy/wild, whatever.

I don't have the cash to waste on someone else's experiments. I'll buy stuff from Great Lakes because it's always good and I can use the bottles, but apart from the very occasional foray into other craft beers, I'm about done with them.

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You'll get no hounding from me. I still like craft brews but there's an incredibly high noise-to-signal ratio, especially in the pale ale, IPA, and stout categories. And I agree that a lot of that noise is trying to outdo the competition. For example, it's fast becoming a hophead's world in craft brewing. Not that hops are bad but I don't want to rub them on my eyeballs while I'm drinking my beer. 10 years ago what they called an IPA would today merely be a Pale Ale. That leads me to having a hard time trusting what I read on the label and that makes it tough for me to pull the trigger on an IPA purchase these days.

hal2814 said:

You'll get no hounding from me. I still like craft brews but there's an incredibly high noise-to-signal ratio, especially in the pale ale, IPA, and stout categories. And I agree that a lot of that noise is trying to outdo the competition. For example, it's fast becoming a hophead's world in craft brewing. Not that hops are bad but I don't want to rub them on my eyeballs while I'm drinking my beer. 10 years ago what they called an IPA would today merely be a Pale Ale. That leads me to having a hard time trusting what I read on the label and that makes it tough for me to pull the trigger on an IPA purchase these days.

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You said it better than me, and for that, sir, I thank you.

hal2814 said:

You'll get no hounding from me. I still like craft brews but there's an incredibly high noise-to-signal ratio, especially in the pale ale, IPA, and stout categories. And I agree that a lot of that noise is trying to outdo the competition. For example, it's fast becoming a hophead's world in craft brewing. Not that hops are bad but I don't want to rub them on my eyeballs while I'm drinking my beer. 10 years ago what they called an IPA would today merely be a Pale Ale. That leads me to having a hard time trusting what I read on the label and that makes it tough for me to pull the trigger on an IPA purchase these days.

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Ball to you sir! As i'm sipping on my Pliny clone.

I do agree with you to an extent though.

Friday after work I pick up 2 or three loose bottles at the local craft store. I never go to bars, and rarely eat out, so other than the Friday treat, it's all Mine.

passedpawn said:

Friday after work I pick up 2 or three loose bottles at the local craft store. I never go to bars, and rarely eat out

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Bloody serial killers. There is one in every forum!

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

I will drink my homebrew exclusively when I can brew as well as the best brewers int he world...... yeah not soon.

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Exactly. Yes, I make good beer. If I didn't I wouldn't keep brewing

However, (and there is always a however in life) most of those craft brewers make much better beer than I can make. So, yeah, I buy craft brew. Just not as frequently as before I started brewing 2 years ago. A few brewers will always have a home in my beer fridge, and I can suplement with my own creations any time.

I only started brewing because I couldn't stand the stuff in the store... The Good stuff was just too expensive at $10/6pack... or more!!!

So I went whole hog! Brew stuff, Kegerator, Kegs, CO2....

The only beer in bottles in my house/fridge is stuff that other people have given or put there... Some of it is 24months or more old and collecting "Dust". I just will not drink it.

I'm happy drinking my own and love the challenge! Nothing better in my opinion.:rockin:

I live in Beervana. There's 80+ professionals out there making beer and much of it is in styles I rarely or never brew because I only want one occasionally. My beers tend to be small and dark, styles that are hard to find commercially.