How long did Mr. Beer hang here?

It's the time of year when Mr. Beer adds to our legions.

As pointed out by others, well meaning gift givers do really do mean well, but I think that the consensus here is that the kit is sub par. Many are concerned that the kits limitations will turn off new bewers.

Some feel that the kit is a good entry point.

Regardless of where you stand on this, I'm intersted in how many had the kit and moved on or stayed. Obviously, we can't track those that had it and left, but that's Nader' problem.

You can also leave your thoughts on the value of the kit as a whole.

I don't think I've ever tasted a Mr. Beer brew, but from what I gather, if you follow a decent procedure instead of following their directions, you'll end up with something half way decent.

I voted started with MB and moved on, but I actually used a brew your own kit that is very similar. My kit used DME and Dextrose for fermentables and real pellet hops instead of prehopped, but they were all stale anyway. The beer I made with the kit was pretty gross and I'm just glad that I was persistent enough to keep going with better ingredients/equipment.

I was introduced on MB. They have you add a sugar that turned most of my brews cidery. I still use the MB keg to do small test brews... such as braggots or when I pick a recipe out of moshers radical brewing book...
cheers!

colonel_colon said:

I still use the MB keg to do small test brews... such as braggots or when I pick a recipe out of moshers radical brewing book...
cheers!

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I'm half tempted to go out and get a Mr beer for that very reason

In 1998 i was dating this one girl and her parents got me a mr beer kit. I was all excited and got it going, then moved to a diff town about an hour away and i left the mr beer fermenting in my parents basement. i then remembered it was there about a year and a half later, tucked away all nice and neat in there furnace room. i opened it up and it smelled like ****. I tossed the whole bastard out. Then last january i stopped into the LHBS as i was killing time while working and the guy there was real nice and told me how easy it was with a non mr. beer starter kit. so i put it down as something to consider for my birthday in Feb. I got it, berwed #1 in march and that was fun, brewerd # 2 in june and something about that brew stuck deep in my soul. now i am on # 8 (AG and kegging)and that one happens to be entered into a contest.

Mr. beer single handedly along with my forgetfulness caused a laps in my brewing career.

A year and a half?! Good lord, man, if ever there were a clear cut case of autolysis, this has to be it! Glad you survived to brew again. As for me, I went into the LHBS on a Saturday when they were doing a brewing demonstration, and I've been doing extract with specialty grains every batch since then.

It normally takes about 2 minutes on here to figure you've been diddled and could of bought a 2 gallon water jug and stuck an airlock on it. With a tube for syphoning, you've got better gear than Mr Beer supplies at <10% the price.

BUT

It comes with everything and is a no brainer. It shows how EASY it can be.

It's just us lot who make it more difficult.

I went right to my LHBS kits for my 1st batch. Funny thing is M.B. is headquartered right here in Tucson and I didn't even know about them until I joined here. I'm sure I've seen them in the store before I started this hobby but I paid them no mind.

I started with the cheapest kit at my local HBS, but that was a lot better then a Mr. Beer kit. My brother used to have a Mr. Beer kit that he used just to serve water from his fridge. I think that is about all they are good for.

I started out with a Mr. Beer kit in July of this year, and might still be using it if not for one thing. You can buy the keg kit in Hawaii, but if you want to brew anymore Mr Beer you have to order it from someone, and shipping costs to Hawaii are outrageous.

I used the Mr Beer a couple of times as a primary fermenter for extract batches, but that didn't work out too well (I didn't keep it in a cool enough place). Plus I was just cutting five gallons recipes in half, and in reality Mr. Beers capacity without being too full is just over 2 gallons. Once I got my five gallon kit in late November, Mr Beer went out to the shed.

A guy I work with got a Mr Beer about a month ago, and I have been giving him some advice on how to get the most out of it.

Mr. Beer definately did get me started in this hobby, and I thank them for that.

I started over ten years ago with a normal kit. Then I retired from brewing for a while because of my many moves around North America. My love of good beer, however, remained.

For Christmas years ago a friend got me a Mr. Beer kit. It sat in my laundry room for years. Then last year I decided to go ahead and try it out. As soon as I read the instructions I knew it was going to be a less than wonderful beer (Boil for 15 minutes and add three cups of sugar or so..) The beer turned out drinkable, but cidery.

The good news is, it was a catalyst to launch me back into homebrewing. Tasting that beer made me think, "I have done and can do so much better than this!" I immediately tracked down the LHBS which was a city and county away and bought a complete starter kit all over again.

So it's both a good and bad thing. I only wish they would include a complete malt extract kit instead of instructing people to add table sugar. They even tell you to just put dry table sugar into the bottles at bottling time. I knew enough to boil the 'priming sugar' and then divide the solution equally to the bottles. It would be so easy to include better ingredients and instructions and make it a decent small scale brewing system.

I have never heard of Mr Beer until I joined this forum! Sounds like a scary little barrel of brewing nightmares!

I went to a HBS and got kitted out for real basic stuff.
Since moving to Tas I have bought another kit (Coopers) which is quite good -still using the barrel.

I went to the LHBS and built my own equipment kit (I wanted some different items from what they had in their basic kit package, like a bench capper). I had read enough about it beforehand to know what I was looking for.

Is mr beer the same thing that they used to run the infomercials for a few years ago?

I started with a couple of "Ale Pails" and a hopped extract kit from the LHBS. I VERY quickly graduated to original extract + steeping grain recipes and a Better Bottle. Shortly thereafter I abandoned the plastic and extract in favor of grain and a DIY stainless conical. Haven't looked back!

I just read a book and bought all of the required equipment for extract brewing with steeped grains and a 3 gallon boil. After two brews I was up to full volume boils with a brewpot that had a spigot and bazooka screen. That was almost 5 years ago.

I just recently bought a turkey fryer and took my brewing outside and man I wish I would have done that sooner!


My do it myself mentality prevents me from purchasing kits, so I formulate my own recipes and even using extract bothers me, which is why I will soon join the AG leagues.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!:cross:

desertBrew said:

I went right to my LHBS kits for my 1st batch. Funny thing is M.B. is headquartered right here in Tucson and I didn't even know about them until I joined here. I'm sure I've seen them in the store before I started this hobby but I paid them no mind.

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Do we have to go into the ASU-UofA thing?

I've never even seen one, but I have heard horror stories! (Maybe, I should Google them.)

steve

skou said:

Do we have to go into the ASU-UofA thing?

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I went to ASU, my brother went to UofA so we had a pretty good (and good natured) family feud thing going.

As for Mr. Beer, I never heard of it until I started investigating home brewing.

My buddy and I bought a Mr. Beer kit from Dillard's (a chain dept store down south) back when we were 17...somehow I convinced my mother that it was a good idea, go figure! All the beer tasted like cider from priming with regular sugar and we wound up pouring half of the beer down the sink. Flash forwards 10+ years and I finally started brewing right; deep down I knew that Mr. Beer wasn't exactly brewing...but it just felt good being 17 and having a big tub of beer chugging away on my shelf...Of course, I would NEVER condone this type of licentious behavior! Nobody should drink under 21, right!?
The dilemma: it isn't illegal to purchase homebrew equipment underage...but it's illegal to possess alcoholic beverages under 21. So maybe that pesky yeast is to blame!

Marc.

Both of the Brewsacks are rotting in some landfill. If Mr. Beer is the Model T of brewing, Brewsacks are tricycles with missing wheels and no seat!

skou said:

Do we have to go into the ASU-UofA thing?

steve

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Only if basketball is the topic . I'm a 9 year transplant from WI so I wear Badger colors too though.

I received a MB kit as a gift 8 or 9 years ago and quickly realized their kit beer was terrible. After that first batch I packed it back into its box where it sat until last week when I pulled it out, dusted it off and used the barrel to brew a half-batch of EdWort's Apfelwein.

I started with MRB System. The first batch was sweet and cider like, I drank only one bottle. I let it sit for a month. The sweet cidery taste disappeared completely.

I have brewed several batches about 10 or so.

The lighter extract & booster combos are comparable to BMC. (If you age it 1-3 months) FYI - Booster is corn sugar & malto-dextrine. They have been very crisp and clean. I used bottled water and bottle lagered them for 1-3 months. - I brought 4 gallons of this home for xmas (Chicago). The first night home my brother in-laws went through all of it playing cards.

The all-extract batches are OK. I made several recipe variations with the Vienna Lager malts and the unhopped extracts. It makes a better beer than the extract & booster recipes. Several members of my homebrew club have asked for recipes. They were surprised to find they were MRB brews!!

That all said, I have started making the traditional five gallon batches last summer. In an apples to oranges comparison, the main difference I noticed was with carbonation. The traditional boiled wort beer has a lot more smaller tiny bubbles and better head retention after the pour. MRB Beers have larger bubbles and the head disipates quickly. (In A Clean Glass Comparison)

Non-descrimenating beer drinkers don't notice the difference.

I really like the beer better from the traditional boil method. However, I really like the smaller batches from MRB more so.

I have also started using 3 gallon PET bottles as a fermentor and leave the MRB keg for a bottling bucket. This way I can pop on a fermentation lock. Easier to monitor.

Someday I will buy bulk materials and totally stop with the MRB. Right now all my session beers are made with traditional 5 gallon method. As for now I'll continue to do both.

My next 5 gal batch will be Cheesefoods Vanilla Carmel Cream Ale or Dudes Pub-Ale.

my MB kit was crap... got it at a garage sale for 5 bucks, and turned out really bad. But I told my self that I could do much better than that.. so here I am...

Brewed one batch of Mr. Beer (fermenter, ingredients, and all) and trashed it...

Bought a full kit, found this place, and went to town brewing for "real". Haven't trashed a batch yet as most have been very good!

I'm sure you can make good beer with Mr. Beer, but not per their instructions they provide and basic kits they provide IMO. Too little malt, too much sugar, no "secondary", etc. etc. etc. Double up on the malt they suggest and hops and you MIGHT get something decent...

I still use my Mr. Beer fermenter for 2 gallon sample batches (made from real ingredients and recipes), but that's about it. I voted "Started with Mr. Beer, Bought full kit", as I do not truly still use Mr. Beer nor suggest anyone else do so... The fermenters will work for small sample batches if you ever see one for 5 bucks at a yard-sale, but don't drop $40 on this thing...

Crazy Buzzard said:

I received a MB kit as a gift 8 or 9 years ago and quickly realized their kit beer was terrible. After that first batch I packed it back into its box where it sat until last week when I pulled it out, dusted it off and used the barrel to brew a half-batch of EdWort's Apfelwein.

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Haha... this is one of the things I actually brew in my Mr. beer fermenter as well!! I can't drink 5 gallons of a "wine" in any reasonable amount of time so I brew 1/2 the normal.

Orpheus said:

So it's both a good and bad thing. I only wish they would include a complete malt extract kit instead of instructing people to add table sugar. They even tell you to just put dry table sugar into the bottles at bottling time. I knew enough to boil the 'priming sugar' and then divide the solution equally to the bottles. It would be so easy to include better ingredients and instructions and make it a decent small scale brewing system.

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This is so true. A few minor tweaks to their instructions (more extract in the recipes, more real hops and less hopped extract, less table sugar!!, 60 min boils, maybe some type of secondary [or just 2 fermenters], etc.) and I think they could provide a decent system.

The only Mr. beer recipe I ever made was one of their pale ales and as I recall there was more sugar than malt in the recipe. And no hops at all that I recall?! How do they expect to keep customers like that?

(Of course I guess thats not their concern; they rob your $40 and don't have a second worry if you stick with it or not)

Never used a kit. Probably never will, as I'm now doing AG. Started off extract w/ steeped grains, using Papazian recipes, mostly. Moved on to PM from there, bought ProMash, and started making my own recipes. I'd guess that about 80-85% of my 23 brews have been from recipes I formulated myself. And I just did my first AG last week. I've just never seen the allure in kits, I guess. I get extraordinary satisfaction from brewing (and drinking) something that is entirely my own creation, and when I formulate my own recipes, it's mine all the way.

First time I ever brewed was on my current system. I did watch a friend do a partial mash in a cooler once though...

Interesting thread, but my option isn't there . I read How to brew online and basically ordered the ingredients from my LHBS to brew an APA. I picked the hops, the yeast and the liquid and dry malt extracts but followed his proportions.

zoebisch01 said:

Interesting thread, but my option isn't there . I read How to brew online and basically ordered the ingredients from my LHBS to brew an APA. I picked the hops, the yeast and the liquid and dry malt extracts but followed his proportions.

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This poll is about equipment. If you bought all your stuff seperately , it's still pretty much a kit - just one that you put together.

rdwj said:

This poll is about equipment. If you bought all your stuff seperately , it's still pretty much a kit - just one that you put together.

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Ahh, k...omw to vote.....

i started with a MB. It got me excited and I found this site. B4 my one and only MB batch was finished I bought a carboy kit, and after getting even more excited I was doing AG by my fifth batch. but back to the MB batch, it turned out ok. it was cidery but i drank it. :cross: