Penchant for craft brew Vs. home brewing, chicken or egg?

I was always a cheap light beer kind of guy. Bud light, whatever, as long as I could drink it in volume without breaking the bank. The more expensive/exotic beers like dark beers, craft beers, etc. didn't appeal to my wallet OR my palette. I got into homebrewing to make swill even cheaper than I could buy swill.

Since getting into homebrewing and spending a lot of time at LHBS demos and beer tasting events, I would say that the doors have opened a little wider for me. I'm way more open-minded (or open-mouthed) that before, but still not completely "down" with all of the more flavorful varieties. I'm still no beer connoisseur, but I'm making progress.

So for me, homebrewing was the egg and craft beer is the chicken.

Is this how it happens for most? Or are there more people who develop a penchant for craft beer and then enter the homebrew hobby for the purpose of making newer and better craft beer?

Oh, and I've made absolutely no progress in the wine arena. I still love bottom shelf sweet wine (read: Carlo Rossi Sangria & box wine) and don't have much use for the more expensive and more dry stuff. maybe I should go hang out at a wine bar or something.

For me it was craft beers first. Got in the hobby completely by accident as I was assisting a friend who brewed. Took me one sip of the finished product and I knew I was hooked then.

never looked back

I got into it after watching a sitcom where a couple if mates decided to make beer... I thought we can go that for the laugh, I convinced my 2 brother in laws to join in, we got the basic kit and brewed it as per instruction. During that time I found this site and read up in beer, process etc and got sucked in deeper n deeper so that I can't see the light any more. I'm still brewing extract with partial mash but have gone mad building a 2 sided fermentation chamber and doing keggles now, then a single tier stand. It s never ending spiral of fun, oh yeah beer aswell

I was Craft beer first home brewing second. I was interested in homebrewing from the get go but didn't have means until my brother bought his house 3 years ago.

The egg came first, by the way.

LandoLincoln said:

The egg came first, by the way.

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No no no it was the chicken

We were having this discussion in another thread yesterday.

Revvy said:

Jayhem said:

I think the fact that this is a homebrewing forum leads many to assume he meant "craft beer".

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Really, why would you say that??? Actually if you get down to it, it's a higher probabilty that someone coming into homebrewing is coming from a bmc drinking background than a craft beer background, since quite simply more folks on this planet consume mass market brew than craft beer. If you look at markets like Canada (look at Craig of Craigtube) New Zealand and Australia, the reasons people homebrew are not because they're necessarily craft beer drinkers, but for economic ones. That's why I think it's rude to denigrate someone coming on here wanting to make a BMC type one beer, because not everyone came from a craft beer background like I did.

And assuming that everyone who homebrews is a craft brew drinker. I learned a long time ago not to assume anything.

In fact I bet if you look at the most sold beginner kits by Mr Beer, Cooper's, BB and all the other kit manufacturers they top sellers are those kits which are going to be in the closest approximation to a BMC beer, like the "Pseudo lager."

I think half the people I've taught brewing to were basic BMC drinkers. They gravitated to other styles later, but the first brews I help many folks with were of the above mentioned bmc-esque beers.

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I really don't know what the stats, are but I bet it's pretty close to 50-50, or it is that more homebrewers come from a "regular" beer drinking background rather than like me, came from drinking craft beers since I became legal in 1987. I was kind of lucky. I had tried BMC "underage" and hated it. In fact on my 21st birthday I didn't go out and buy a sixer of Budlight like most kids my age. I went out and bought a very expensive bottle of Calvados instead.

But being an avid reader I heard about all the other "exotic" beers from around the world, like Guinness and stuff. And luckily around that time was the beginnings of the craft beer phenomena, and Sierra Nevada, and Bell's locally and a Sam Adams started to become available, and also a tiny few stores started carrying imports and the few craft breweries out there.

In fact my first "special" beer was Double Diamond Burton ale, bought in the kind of inner-city party store where the also kept the "chore boy" scrubbies and sold plastic roses in little glass test tubes at the front counter (if you don't know chore boy and little glass test tubes can be used to smoke crack with, they're quite popular in inner city stores.)

I don't know if it was because the store owner liked that beer, but it was there amongst the wild Irish rose. So I've been a die hard craft drinker for a long time.

I've only been brewing in the last 10 years, But it's been since I've homebrewed that I've actually consumed a broader range of styles.

For pretty much all those decades of drinking craft brew I drank pretty much only IPA, Pale Ales, Porters, Stouts, Browns, California Common Beers and Reds. I drank a lot of them, I drank them from breweries around the world, and considered myself a pretty knowledgeable beer guy.....ANd for most of my drinking time, that was all that was available, there wasn't that plethroa of craft beer styles like there are now. So my palate or my exploration was pretty limited to that narrow band of pretty common beer styles.

But since taking up this hobby, and wanting to learn to brew more and more styles, I've DRANK more and more styles.

Just off the top of my head; Wits, Bocks, Vienna Lagers, Doppelbocs, Maibocs, Cream Ales, Pilsners, Dortmunders, Lambics, Oktoberfests, Munich Dunkel, Schwarzbier, Blonde Ale, Kölsch, Rye Beer, Ordinary Bitter, ESB, Scottish Wee Heavy, saison, Biere De Garde, Barleywine, Flander's Red, Belgian Dubbel, Belgian Tripel....AND just in the last couple years actually started enjoying BMC beers which I snubbed since being old enough to drink.....I can say that these styles for me are ONLY as old as my brewing has been. If I hadn't brewed, I probably never would have tried half of them.

Good topic. But like I said yesterday, I bet you'd find a surprisingly high numbers who came from drinking Mega beer.

I have been drinking craft beer on occasions for several years. Never as a mainstay though. I have also had it in my mind for about the past two years that I wanted to homebrew, just that I didn't really have the space to do it and didn't want to spend the cost upfront. About 9-12 months ago I started drinking most only craft beer. A lot of this was for research and bottles, as I knew I was going to start homebrewing once I bought a house and no idea what the different styles were. Once I started drinking craft brew regularly, I realized a whole new world of beer existed that I had no idea about. So for me it was kind of a chicken omelette.

I started getting into craft beer about 2003-2004. I'd had beers like Harp, Guinness, Murphys, Killians, etc previously, but it wasn't until 2003-2004 that I discovered Arrogant Bastard & Belgian beer [Maredsous], and those were the ones that truly opened the door. Then when I saw Alton Brown's "Good Eats" episode in 2005 I said I needed to brew my own. Started in 2006, and never looked back.

So for me, craft beer was the lead-in.

It's also funny, as we talked about in another thread about beers you've changed your mind on, I grew up drinking only craft beers, and snubbing BMC. And buying into all the idiotic and historically inaccurate beersnob lies about how BMC added adjunct to cut costs, and all that other stuff that had me looking down at BMC, and those who drank them.

Then I read Maureen Ogle's book Ambitious Brew, and learned the truth about how the style developed, and was created because of consumer demand since people in the 1800's could afford meat with every meal and therefore heavy beers (liquid bread) was falling out of favors. So I started to give those beers, and the American Lager/Light Lager a different look...and developed more respect for them.

And I realized what I didn't like about Budweiser and Bud light in particular, was not that they were BMC or made by the supposed "evil empire" but that they were rice adjuncted lagers. And I didn't like other Rice adjuncted lagers, like Sapporo...but I did like corn adjuncted lagers, regardless of whether they were made by craft breweries or by the mega ones. And I quite enjoy corn adjuncted lagers, like Labatts.

In fact the more and more lagers, and lager like ales I've discovered the more I've loved. Maibocs, Vienna Lagers, Bohemian Pilsners, Dopplebocks all wonderful and amazing beers that I virtually ignored or looked down at because they were "lagers" and I thought I was too good for them. And even Kolsh, which is an ale, but in a lot of ways lager like. I looked down and passed all these amazing beers by because I had a "beersnob" stick up my ass and thought those beers and those who drank them were "less than" I was.

As I homebrewer I came to appreciate just how difficult it is to brew a light american lager, especially consistantly, batch after batch, and just because I didn't enjoy a certain beer, didn't mean that the brewery didn't deserve my respect for turning out such a difficult product to brew. And that the breweries themselves like AHB-inbev contributed so much historically to the culture and the technology of brewing beer.

And I also learned that all beer has it's place, EVEN light beers, especially in the summer. And that beer is the most egalitarian of drinks, and we shouldn't have an "us vs them" mentality about it. And open ourselves up to trying ALL beers.

My interest in import beers is what got me started brewing. Now I should mention that this was at a time before there was craft beers (barely). I would droll over all the imports, but being a poor grad. student, I could only rarely buy them. Hence the homebrewing. I used to drink the typical cheap BMC lower brands (I still don't mind these at the proper time a place) but that isw not what I wanted to brew. There was no domestic option. By the time I was finished with school Bells had opened and that was a great treat. Then we moved to CA, and had great fun trying all of the beers in the early 90's. That is where we got started with wine as well

My evolution to home brewing was much the same as my evolution into making and enjoying wine. Couldn't really drink and enjoy any BMC beer much the same as I couldn't really drink and enjoy any cheap wine. My moms Vin Rose used to make me gag. Eventually came across some decent Belgian which led me to try craft beers which led me to helping a buddy with his extract kits which led to my entry into all grain home brewing... Still can't drink most BMC beer... unless it is a really hot day and I've been doing hard ranch work for several hours....

When I think back to it, I was definitely a BMC drinker first who only occasionally branched out to something I knew I liked. I only branched out because we used to go to a beer distributor when I was in college that had a scratch and dent sale 1 saturday a month. You could get a wide variety of whatever they had thrown in to these big rubbermaid tubs it was 50$ and you got around 300 beers. Our whole fridge (and cabinets) were always full of a TON of different beers. A few months after college my buddy that worked at a liquor store had a friend that brewed and we stopped by for a brew day. A few weeks after that we made a partial mash oktoberfest together. I don't drink bmc anymore because it just doesn't have the taste I have grown to love, but since I've guzzled so much of it in my time it would be HIGHLY hypocritical for me to begrudge someone their BMC

I was always a craft beer drinker to some extent. When I hit legal drinking age, was right about the time that the craft brews were starting to march their way across the country. That being said, College also gave me a taste for cheap beer as it fit my budget a lot better. I would usually try and start out with something on the craft end and then switch to BMC as the day wore on if I knew I was going to be drinking to intoxication. As time wore on, drinking to intoxication became less a priority and flavor and enjoyment moved in as more of a priority.

Basically though, cost is what finally drove me to homebrewing. I drink quite a bit of beer over the course of a month. I've had a kegerator for years and was getting tired of the increase in cost for each keg that seemed to be happening every 6 months. Finally, I decided, "You know what, I can brew this for a fraction of what I'm paying now and rather than sitting on one flavor for weeks if not months at a time, I can have 3 different brews on tap to sample at my leisure. I'm a big fan of Amber Ales too. And basically got to a point where enough new ones weren't showing up. So, I always have an amber on tap of some sort and have yet to duplicate a recipe exactly the way I brewed it before. I keep saying, "I need to go back to that one." but then some different hop combination comes up or I decide to try a little bit more of this malt or that malt and I end up brewing something new. In the end, that's the joy, right?

I don't really look at it though as a "Cost Saving" venture though. It's a hobby that I really enjoy and something I never thought I'd enjoy doing as much as I do. When I decided to start brewing, I looked at brewing as a means to an end. Basically, "OK, I'm brewing to make beer." Now though, it truly is the brewing I enjoy, the beer is the big pay-off at the end that makes it all worth while. I'm definitely a brewer who got into it because of the craft brews I liked and try to emulate those styles. I was always one who would go into the liqour store and go, "Oh, new beer on the shelf, must try this."

The only major thing brewing has done to my tastes though, is that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to drink BMC. I have so much more "flavorful" beer available all the time, BMC gives me that feeling of college and the idea that the only reason I'm drinking this is to catch a buzz as opposed to actually enjoying the flavor. Well, that and wanting to drink a couple of beers and protect my waistline.

So yeah, after my long winded, blowhard post, to answer your question, Homebrewing was definitely the Chicken to my craft brew egg.

Homebrewing first for me.

I first picked up the taste for craft beers in the Army when I was stationed in Colorado where the scene was already in full swing (1998). On my few tips to Germany I then picked up an appreciation for good lagers. When I got out of the Army, NYC was still far behind when it came to the craft beer market, so I decided to try homebrewing so I could keep drinking the types of beers I had become accustomed to. So for me, the beer came before homebrewing.