Why did you start brewing?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Why did you start Home Brewing?

  • To save money

  • Access varieties you can't obtain locally

  • You were fascinated by the hobby/ It seemed fun

  • The pride of making your own brew

  • To obtain a fresher/more natural product


Results are only viewable after voting.

ARFan

Member
Joined
Sep 18, 2006
Messages
15
Reaction score
0
If you guys can remember; what was it that initially sparked your interest or made you decide to start brewing your own?

For me it was a combination of the following:

1) Inexpensive way of obtaining microbrew quality flavor
2) It seemed really fun and fascinating
3) Once I looked into it, I found it was surprisingly easy to get started doing the basics.

I'm going to try to attach a poll to this post, not sure if it'll work or not as I've never done one before.

If you don't see your option in the poll feel free to post and let us know that way.

ETA: I allowed for choosing more than one response, so try to pick the one or two that most influenced you.
 
Easier to make the beer I want to drink than track it down at one of the State Liquor Stores.
 
I've always been fascinated with beer. Ever since I was a kid. I was so proud of being from Wisconsin and all the historic beer.

I had been itching to brew my own for years, and I even started subscribing to BYO in the mid 90s. I never got into it until 10 years later.
 
I was getting pretty stressed out, and needed a new hobby, something to take my mind off work (which it probably does too well).

Subconsiously, I think the fact SWMBO used to be in a relationship with a guy who was a homebrewer and, by all accounts, hung like a horse, probably had something to do with it... :D

It's also an extension of the cooking that I get into, and I enjoy making gadgets and stuff (not that I knew the extent of that at the time). Basically, it was just something that seemed cool to do, it wasn't to get cheap beer.
 
I needed a hobby that involved making something and had a DIY element to it and I love beer so, it seemed pretty obvious to me once I did some research and saw that the basic process was pretty simple. I also love to cook and brewing is a lot like cooking in a lot of ways, plus the cleaning aspect appeals to my meticulous nature. All in all, it's been a great fit for me so far.
 
I was poor and couldn't buy the beers I wanted. There were no micros yet and so lots of the beer you would buy was nasty and old. And once I made my first batch I was hooked - bad.
 
Inexpensive? Did I miss out on the free equipment and ingredients?
 
Ah come on:) In the big scheme of things, to get into extract brewing it's relatively cheap. Us Canadians have it notoriously bad in terms of liquor taxes, but I'm sure most Americans will be able to pay for the cost of equipment and ingredients within the first couple batches at most.
 
the_bird said:
Subconsiously, I think the fact SWMBO used to be in a relationship with a guy who was a homebrewer and, by all accounts, hung like a horse, probably had something to do with it... :D

Well, at least you're a homebrewer now! ;)
 
When I was a kid my mother brewed her own wines (cheap kits mostly) and the back room in the house seemed to have an airlock bubbling away on a 1 gallon carboy every 6 months or so. I never took much notice really but understood the basics of sanitizing/using airlocks etc from listening and watching.

My first brew was about 1993 with a neighbour using his equipment and help - a lager, and if i remember correctly it wasn't a even a threat to neat donkey p*ss let alone crappy commercial lager!:D I never gave up brewing, I just moved house, didn't give a forwarding address and bought my own kit.... ;)

I'm in this for both the enjoyment of having a 'hobby' that's cheap and the satisfaction of knowing i can make decent brews that I enjoy!
 
todd_k said:
Inexpensive? Did I miss out on the free equipment and ingredients?

LOL - I'd HATE to break down my cost per case considering everything I've bought in the name of this hobby. I'm nowhere near saving money and doubt I'll ever break even.
 
I used to joke for years about brewing in the basement, usually just to pull SWMBO's leg. But I read up on it. After buying a house, one day everything just sort of fell into my lap and I started brewing.
She says the only good thing about it is that it keeps me off the computer.
 
A friend's GF purchased two brewSa(u)cks for his birthday & gave me one. The sacks were really bad, but we decided to give proper homebrewing a try. None of the poll reasons apply.
 
I had a friend and a brother-in-law that brewed, and I commented quite a bit on how interesting and fun it seemed to be. Then SWMBO surprised me one Christmas with a starter kit, and it snowballed big time from there - AG setup, yeast harvesting, kegerator, etc. And SWMBO doesn't even LIKE beer! Oh, and by the way, neither my friend nor my brother-in-law still brew. Weird, huh?
 
I broke my leg playing hockey last winter and the woman who hit me has been a winemaker for 30 years. I needed a new hobby that didn't require two legs, so started making wine. I realized that wine takes friggin' forever, so I started on beer. I've always loved good beer, and there are no microbreweries near me at all. So, I'm having great beer that I made myself.

I've since become very popular, with friends who always want to stop over. My husband thinks I'm great!

Lorena
 
swmbo bought me a starter kit for christmas one year and it snowballed from there
i like my beer better than bmc now and it works out cheaper(so swmbo thinks!)
than buying good micros each week.
 
I started when I was 18...34 now....The legal drinking age is 19 in Ontario.
My grandparents on both sides were bootleggers (from their farms) so it seemed like a nice tradtion to uphold.
I did it mainly because I thought it would be fun and always liked to learn how to do things on my own. I also liked the idea of saving $...but that now is a distant memory as quality and experimentation are my main goals.

Cheers.
 
Where is the option to choose 'because my daddy brewed and his daddy brewed and his daddy was a bootlegger and his daddy....'
 
I'm not the only one that recieved a kit from ones SWMBO as a gift!! Have been interested in baking breads for quite awhile, and since one of her relitives is homebrewing, seemed to be a good extention in handling yeast. 20+ batches later, I'm hooked!!!
 
I blame that prick Charlie Papazian!

When I was a young, impressionable teen, I saw a multi-part series on TV Ontario (like PBS) by Charlie Papazian on brewing your own beer (this was back in 1989-1990.) After watching this, and drinking lots of beer myself, I decided I had to try it out. Some friends and I bought a cheap kit, and some garbage pails. There was no boiling and you just added sugar and water to the garbage pail.

The beer sucked, but I was happy with it and proud I had made it. Luckily I taped Charlie's show and went on to brew some great beer on my very next batch! The rest, as they say, is history!
 
I think that Alton Brown show is what got me started.After watching the show I got a kit as a Christmas gift. About 6-700 dollars later I'm making beer about every 3 weeks.
As a side note it seems that good commercial beer has really jumped in price the last 6 months. That makes homebrewing that much more satisfying.
 
I got an old copy of Charlie P's book from my in-laws when they noticed that my average beer consumption was a bit greater than average...can't complain a bit about the in-laws. I'm a big fan of Alton Brown's show and saw the episode. After I got back from my next business trip (for which I was well reimbursed), I bought a starter kit + a few extras and never looked back.

I'm completely fascinated by brewing science/techniques/art, and I'm usually quite pleased with my results. I wish I could say that I brew beer cheaper than I could buy it, but I don't think I've quite overcome the overhead of equipment cost. I just paid WAY more than I want to admit for AG equipment, but SWMBO is subscribing to this bit of math (for now) - I used to pay $40-$50 per 5 gallon extract batch. I just spent $75 for enough grain and hops to brew two 15 gallon batches, taking my ingredient cost per 12 oz bottle to under 25 cents.
 
I happend to go to a yard sale last fall and the was a Brewers Best starter kit complete minus ingredients for $5. It seemed like an interesting idea so I bought it and here I am waiting to do another batch.
 
The idea of brewing my own beer has fascinated me for a long time. Stumbling across this forum was what really spurred me into action. I can't remember what I was googling for when I found this place, but it probably had something to do with bleach.
 
I have a few different reasons for getting into brewing...

First of all, my brother was a brewer. Not just a homebrewer, he did it for a living, being the brewer at a brewpub. I went out to visit him around the time I was 19. At that time, I didn't drink at all, so my introduction to beer was quite pleasant...he took me around and introduced me to good microbrew, which is why I am still a bit of a beer snob these days (Don't get me wrong, I don't turn down beer when offered, but I prefer a good microbrew to about anything else.)

I never had a problem with getting good beer while I was living in the states, because we have a few really great brewpubs near where I lived (meaning a 15 minute bike ride). I was pretty busy with other things so I never got into it at the time.

But now I live in South Korea, and here, the beer is just awful. While complaining about this to one of my Korean friends a few weeks back, he mentioned getting into homebrewing. We checked it out, got the ingredients that we could get ahold of, and brewed up a batch! I am still waiting for the suppliers here in Korea to get in the ingredients I need to make another batch (all 4 or 5 suppliers are sold out of a lot of stuff at the moment, it being a holiday here) but I'll be back on top once I get those and start brewing again!
 
I just like the idea of knowing how to do something, and once I started brewing it seemed like the perfect hobby. You can do it when you have the time, it's very forgiving and you certainly can enjoy the fruits of you labor.

I also think that having a community like this considerably helps someone stay with the hobby when problems arise, rather than just give up.
 
I thought it seemed like fun, and my brother had a very, VERY modest brewing setup that he gave to me. It consisted of a couple pamphlets, a large bucket with lid and airlock, some bottles, and a capper. I was hooked after the first batch. But I really got serious when I went all grain.
 
i got into it when i was nineteen, to young to buy beer, and that was almost ten years ago. gotta luv it.
 
For years, I drank the big 3. Then on a business trip to Denver, we all went to one of the microbreweries on the pedestrian mall and I SAW THE LIGHT!!! The taste, the color, the smell....egads! I was like a little boy in the candy factory...or so I was told the next morning by some of my fellow co-workers because I didn't remember much after the 4th mug of unknown. Then, same kind of deal, was in Austin Texas and the breweries down there....well, enough said. Thats all it took. Like Dude, I read about homebrewing for years. It wasn't until my wife suggested try doing it. I guess she was getting tired of me going out and she was pregnant, so it was a happy medium. Also, Fort Sill, where I work, actually opened up a microbrewery that will sell you a gallon to go, so I started picking those up and really, REALLY liked what I was tasting, and so did the wife. They make a pretty good Helles and a "summer brew." Did I mention her ex brewed beer as well? But I don't know about the hung like a horse part... ha ha. Anyway, as soon as I "thought" I was armed to the teeth with enough mental information, I jumped into it thinking I was already a master brewer. Yeah, right. So, here I am and plan to stay.
I'll be sticking with extracts and probably, eventually, mini-mashes and bottling. After I get a better feel for it, I'm jumping ship to kegging. I have no plans on going to AG. However, once my 3 year gets older and I have some more time on my hands, that might change.
 
During senior week at my university, one of my CS professors had all of the seniors in the department over to his place for dinner. He told us all to bring one pound of honey. None of us had a clue what we were in for, but when we got there, he was making mead! We each poured our honey in, and brewed a batch. We drank the mead that the class from the year before had made, and our batch was consumed by the class of '05, and so on. They also had some home-brewed beer while I was there, and I tried it and loved it. I was already a fan of all sorts of beer varieties, but it had never occurred to me to make my own. Now I'm hooked! :tank:
 
redsox1 said:
i got into it when i was nineteen, to young to buy beer, and that was almost ten years ago. gotta luv it.

You know, since I started brewing, I always wondered what on earth could stop a teenager from making his or her own beer (provided you had the space to do it secretly). You can order the stuff online, and it's not like there are any age checks. If only I'd have known back then... :drunk:
 
I started when SWMBO bought me kit for Christmas a few years back. A couple of my friends have brewed from time to time and I can't remember if I said something to her or what but I don't recall specificly asking for it. I brewed a couple of batches a year before getting the bug big time last spring(coincedently the same time I found this place:cross: ) Now I'm starting to put together the equipment to step up to all grain. Homebrewing has really opened my eyes to some great beers. Best present she ever gave me.
 
ayrton said:
You know, since I started brewing, I always wondered what on earth could stop a teenager from making his or her own beer (provided you had the space to do it secretly). You can order the stuff online, and it's not like there are any age checks. If only I'd have known back then... :drunk:

Well, depending on the state the teenager lives in, they might not even have to do it secretly.
 
Secretly from mom and dad, is how I interpreted that....

We get kidlings on the site occassionally (there was a flury when school let out for the summer). I kinda like being a bit of a dick to them, just because I'm practicing for when I'm a curmudgeon in my old age. I do wish, though, that we had thought of homebrewing back in the day, would have been better than paying the scary dude $3 (and having to let him into my car) to pick us up an 18-pack of Bud.

Nothing illegal about buying grain, yeast, malt, and buckets...
 
Back
Top