Suggestions for a mother's day present...

Ok so since I was in 8th grade my mother always wanted to brew her own beer. I'm gonna be a senior in college soon (exams coming up first week of may) and for mother's day I figured me and my brother would get her everything to brew her own beer. So my question is what type of raspberry beer should I get her? She loves corona so I'm gonna get her an ingredient kit for a corona clone (coopers I think is the brand) and she always said she wanted to try raspberry beer. Where we live it is probably a good hour and a half drive to get out of cornfields and find someplace that might have a Raspberry beer in bottles so I thought I would get her one of those in a kit form too. However not being to knowledgeable I was not sure what type to get her.

I've been looking and found I've got about two choices either A Raspberry Ale or A Raspberry Wheat.

Father not much help, and other family members and her best friend where not any help either. Not many people have ever seen her drink anything other than corona, maybe a blue moon every now and then. So I figured I'd ask you guys what would be the better choice? Oh and with this coopers kit it says I need another two pounds of fermentable sugars to make it perfect so I was wondering what kind? Do I get like more malt or just use like corn sugar?

Thank you for any help,

I've been researching what we need to get for her for the past week now so I'm planning on ordering everything. Maybe even all from Austin Home brewers site seen that stuff about him helping the one guy out who has been having some serious problems. Just won me over with that, awesome guy to do that.



Plus after school and work settle down I'm thinking about looking into tasting some nice stuff then finding out what I'd like to brew myself, looks like lots of fun.

I just made a Rasberry Red Ale that tasted great when I took my FG reading.

Take a look around for Abita Purple Haze recipes. It's a popular raspberry wheat.

As for the 2 lbs of extra fermentables, use some light dry malt extract. Skip the sugar.

Awesome thanks for the info... I'll keep checking back to see if anyone has any other opinions, hope it all goes well.

Yuri_Rage said:

Take a look around for Abita Purple Haze recipes. It's a popular raspberry wheat.

As for the 2 lbs of extra fermentables, use some light dry malt extract. Skip the sugar.

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austinhomebrew.com has an abita purple haze kit that is a good price...i just bottled mine and the sample i tried when bottling tasted great

Well I'll be ordering this tomorrow I think, maybe Wednesday depends on when my bank account clears up so I know I've got the money in there. Going with the Deluxe Homebrew kit, Abita Purple Haze extract pack (2 recommendations) and the AHS Gold Seal Cerveza Extract Kitv (picked over the cooper's kit). Other odds and ends too bottles, starsan stuff, ect. Any other pieces that you would say are a good idea?

I suggest a wine thief to ease the process of getting hydrometer samples. Otherwise, you're good to go!

Ok, so I got everything ordered and got an email that it will be at my grandmother's on monday. My mom is gonna be at the dentists for something about her jaw. So we are gonna give it to her early so she can have her first batch ready around mother's day. Approximately a month till it will be completely done (not aged) would give her the week after mother's day that she could drink it.

Plus on top of this all she thinks that I'm getting her all this stuff for Christmas. I'm a freakin genius.

Now it is time to brainstorm for father's day and my dad's birthday (about a month apart from each other.) Though he is quite a bit harder to shop for... Plus I don't think I could get him anything for home brewing.

Sounds like a great Mother's day present. I'm guessing your dad isn't much of a beer drinker if he has no interest in home brewing at all. Another point is that with the same equipment, she should be able to make her own wine too.

No he is not, he is more of a Captain and Coke guy. And she does want to make wine too. Although I think she would want to make smaller batches of wine because she does not drink it quite that fast. I'm sure a 5 or 6 gallon batch of wine would last her an entire year. Two cases of a corona clone, maybe a few months tops if she has no help with it. Although lately she has not been drinking because of work (does taxes) for early morning to late nights makes it kinda hard for her. Since it is all calming down I bet she would love to drink it now, I think this is perfect timing over christmas too because around christmas she is getting ready for tax season to start up again.

5 gallons of wine per year is about right. I think it takes 6 months to a year to make a 5 gallon batch of wine. I was fairly surprised it takes over a month to make beer...

Let us know how she likes it. : )

Ok got my stuff today (thanks AHB.com) and we set it up in the boxes for her to open today. So assuming that she gets it brewed soemtime soon she can bottle it and drink it a week or two after mother's day... If her face was not quite so numb from going to the dentists earlier then I'm sure she would have looked quite a bit more happy, but the half pain from talking and numbness might stop that some I'd say.