Your favorite kits?!?!?!

So I'm a newish brewer, done about 5 batches, and I've gotten brewing classic styles, and some other books, but mostly still buying kits online.

What have been your favorites? I'm skeptical of some, for instance, austin homebrew, has literally hundreds of kits, each in a extract, partial mash, and all grain recipe, which equates to thousands of different recipes which is impossible to vet.

So I'm reaching out to you, what're your favourite kits? Regardless of style....

I'm looking for stuff online, since anyone can get that.

I should add that my favorites are Midwest Supplies Octane IPA and their Raspberry wheat.

I was not impressed with Austinhomebrew's Kolsch or Hefeweizen, those were both partial mashes. Maybe my partial mash sucked so I'm going to try one of their extracts next.

Most of my favorite kits came from Austin Homebrew both in extract and AG. We've made a few dozen and haven't made one we haven't liked.

I would say anything from Austin Homebrew that sounds like something you would want to drink is probably going to be good.

so far i have only used midwests kits, my faves are the liberty cream ale, hop head double ipa, and the boundary waters wheat.

I'll second the midwest Liberty Cream Ale and the Hophead Double IPA
and throw in the schwarzwald Black Lager (extremely good!!)

I've used both Northern Brewer and Rebel Brewer and have been happy with all of my recipes so far, ordering from Austin Homebrew next as a matter of fact.

I had great success with Homebrew Adventures / ebrew.com when I was extract brewing. Loved the Old Ale bier I created w/ their extract kit plus 2 lbs base malt, used wlp 013. Awesome brew! Their Northern English Brown is gteat also.

Schlante,
Phillip

I, too, would vote for Midwest's Liberty Cream Ale...I've brewed it twice. I also enjoyed their Autumn Amber Ale and the Irish Red Ale. I'll brew both of those again in the not-too-distant future.

I like the options that Austin Homebrew offers, but I have yet to order from them.

glenn514

Midwest = HopHead IPA and Hanks Hefe
NorthernBrewer = Bourbon Barrel Porter & Patersbier
Austin HB = WestCoast PaleAle & Double Chocolate stout

I've done the Sierra Madre kit from NorthernBrewer twice and it's great. I've also done their Honey Brown and Cream Ale kits, both were great as well.

I currently have an Anchor Liberty clone from Austin Home Brew in primary and will be excited to try that too. I think it's going to be great, the recipe was awesome.

I have only used Northern Brewer and True Brew Kits. By far my favorites have been from Northern Brewer. Everything is really fresh and I am constantly amazed at how well each kit has turned out (I've done about 12 different ones so far).

Haven't brewed a ton of beers yet but the "Grand Cru" kit from Midwest turned out awesome for me. My friends couldn't believe it was homebrew...

Midwest's Irish Stout is good. Neither of the True Brew kit's I've tried turned out very well, but part of that is surely attributed to me being a n00b.

I'm a NB devotee and have done several. So far my favorites are a Biere de Garde hybrid with a mostly Oktoberfest style grain (extract really!) bill but a fun estery yeast, and a session saison with lovely floral hop aroma (currently carbonating but I liked the hydrometer sample so much, even warm & flat, that I made up an excuse to rack off a little more to guzzle.)

True Brew Belgian Ale...after it aged for about 6 weeks has been great - hated it at first.

Northern Brewer: Dry Irish Stout, Cream Ale. Both awsome beers. Getting ready to try their Nukey Brown Ale kit. I think any kit from NB will be good as long as you like that style of beer.

Cheers

+1 on the Northern Brewer Dry Irish Stout & Cream Ale. The cream ale is a quick brew that's ready to drink in no time, and the dry irish stout tastes just like Guiness after a little time to condition and carb properly. I also really like their Nut Brown Ale, good flavors.

One of the things that I did to decide which NB kits to brew was to look at the styles I liked and which ones had the most comments posted on them. I figured if that many people took the time to post a response then it must be good.

Northern Brewer makes great kits!
Irish Red
The Golden Dragon Sub WY3787 or WLP570 (preferred over WY3787) for the Wyeast #3739 Flanders Golden Ale.
Dry Irish Stout
The Number 8
Cream Ale
Sierra Madre - Dry Hop with 1oz Cascade - Takes it from great to fantastic
Sinistral Warrior IPA
Three Hearted Ale
Waldo Lake Amber

Northern Brewer's Patersbier was the best extract kit I've made.

Coopers Premium Irish Stout with a pound of maltodextrin
AHS Pumpkin Stout
Williams Brewing Watermelon Wheat

Finally a plug for my lhbs Bride of Abbey at NThomebrew

Midwest- You can't go wrong with the Grand Cru. It's the best beer I've brewed in my 3 years of brewing.
Northern Brewer- St. Paul Porter is excellent. I added 10oz of QuickOats with the steeping grains and it was SILKY SMOOTH.

I have only done a few kits so far but my favorite is the Irish Red Ale.

Have any of you guys tried the Gulden Draak clone kit from Austin Homebrew Supply. I hear good things about AHBS kits but was hoping to get some insight into this kit in particular.

I'm a few weeks into my first brewhouse kit ($35-$40 CAD) (http://thebrewhouse.com/) and I love it so far. I just want good easy to make beer and this is as easy as it gets. It's even easier than making a kit wine since you don't have to degass. It comes with a 15L bag of wort, you add 8L of water and a ph balancer and stir, then add the yeast. Done!

Up here a good beer will run you $22 a dozen, even the cheapest stuff is $12 a dozen. And this will only cost me about $6.50 a dozen for potentially better beer. Sweet deal! Of course I'll probably just drink twice as much.

I guess we'll have to see how it tastes but I've read good things. I'm making the Red Ale and once one of my 4 carboys is free I'll start the Honey Blonde Ale that I bought.

Austin Homebrew all the way. Okie brewer here, so not a ton of local options. Quick shipping during the summer is a plus too, to reduce heat exposure to the yeasties.

My favorite kit is Coopers Real Ale. I throw 3lb of light hopped DME in and the end result is great! (I just finished the last of my first batch of this stuff, and after 6 months in the bottle, it was amazing!)

If you like Rogue's Mocha Porter, AHB's clone kit is excellent.

Midwest - hanks hefeweizen with wyeast 3068.

Muntons Gold kits. The 2 can kits...For less than 25 bucks you can make 5 gallons of great beer! Sometimes I add an extra 2 lbs of light DME and make 6 gallons. I get my kits from Brew Gadgets.

Free shipping tomorrow, so it is a good time to try one of our kits.

Forrest

Austinhomebrew said:

Free shipping tomorrow, so it is a good time to try one of our kits.

Forrest

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Dang it! And I just ordered today

jakecpunut said:

Dang it! And I just ordered today

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Ordered from where?

Austinhomebrew said:

Ordered from where?

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From you all! I ordered a Bridgeport IPA AG kit and some silicon tubing... haha.. a day early!