Mr Beer Microbrewery System

My sister, bought me this system because she knows that I love craft brew and I still haven't used it. Does anything think that this would be good practice before moving onto something bigger and more technical? Or would I be wasting my time making 6 beers hahaha

You should read the "sticky" about Mr. beer at the top of the forum list. It has a TON of info about Mr. beer. I am not a huge fan of Mr. beer, but it is a good way to get your feet wet in the brewing hobby. It is a good way to learn sanitation and brewing technique with a minimum investment in time and equipment. Try it out, and if you like it, step up to a bigger extract kit, or even go all-grain.

A lot of us started with Mr. Beer. I was surprised it turned out as good as it did.
You'll like it!

I think it's a great way to start, you can figure out if brewing is really something you enjoy without investing a whole bunch of money. Don't expect the Mr. Beer finished product to be as good as your favorite commercial craft brews, but it is pretty cool to know you made it, and it's totally drinkable beer. By then you'll either decide homebrewing isn't really for you, or get hopelessly addicted like the rest of us.

I started with Mr. Beer and made 5-6 batches with it.

Truth be told I'm glad I did because it got my feet wet and helped me learn the basics of Homebrewing. Then I took what I learned and moved to 5-gallon extract brews, learned some more, and then moved to All-Grain. Sort of a stepping stone approach, I guess, but I learned a lot and I think I was a better brewer because of it.

Plus - you actually can make some pretty good beer with Mr. Beer. One of the best Stouts I ever made was with Mr. Beer believe it or not.

My first ever batch was a month ago. I got a mr. Beer as a gift then I used the mr. Beer fermenter, but did a 2.5 extract brew with no seeping grains and a hop schedule just to get used to the process instead of the included kit.

Now my neighbor and I have 5 gallons each: a red ipa and sculpin clone in secondaries and a DIPA and a founder breakfast stout clone in primaries. we made wort chillers I found a chest freezer to use as a ferment chamber, in thr process of converting a cooler to a mash tun etc etc etc:

Moral of the story: watch out a Mr. Beer gift may lead to bigger things

My brother gave me a Mr Beer kit along with a recipe for raspberry hard cider. I am no cider expert, but it had a crisp taste, and well carbonated. It was very refreshing, and I learned alot. Now I am waiting on my second batch to come in the mail. Its a Mr Beer October Fest recipe. Hopefully it will turn out awesome! I think my Mr Beer kit is a great starter kit.

>>Plus - you actually can make some pretty good beer with Mr. Beer. One of the best Stouts I ever made was with Mr. Beer believe it or not.

I made a really tasty coffee stout. I "dry hopped" several packets of Flavia ground coffee from the office, and let it sit a week or two. The coffee taste was too strong at first, but then mellowed nicely.

I also liked the Raspberry beer (with canned raspberries)

This is awesome guys. Thank so much for the responses and reassurance! I'm going to order one of the brew kits from Mr Beer and get my feet wet!! Expect a thread with some shots of my first brew!! Thanks again, you guys rule!! Hahaha

There are a few other small scale brewing kits out there, so while you are considering Mr. Beer give us a look and let me know if we can help you start your homebrew journey! Cheers and happy brewing!

If you ignore the instructions (like we say WITH ANY KIT,) and use the proper techniques covered throughout this forum, good sanitization, temp control, using hydrometer, pitching enough yeast, having patience. A mr beer kit can make good beer. There's been at least tone member on here who submitted a properly brewed, mr beer beer into a contest, and medalled.

A mr beer keg is just another fermenter, and the kits are no better or worse than any other extract kit you can make good beer, or crappy beer, but not because it's a mr beer, because of the brewer. Like someone mentioned the MR beer sticky is a fantastic resource, as is the rest of the forum. Brewing is brewing, the same rules, tips, tricks etc apply whether it's an all grain batch brewed on a 10,000 shiny automated system, or the humble mr beer keg. It's ALL about the brewer's care and technique.

Revvy, I like your responses. Always well-worded and useful.



As for mr beer, it's a great way to make good beer. I am still using it due to time and space constraints. The recipes they offer online make the best beers. Stay away from the booster as it tends to not do much for the flavor of the beer.

Gwdraper4 I already have the Mr Beer kit so I was trying to make the best of what I got

Revvy! I was guessing that I can do that since it's has the little "keg" for me to ferment. Do you have any suggestions or threads that I definitely check into other than the stickys?

Give it a shot. It's a super simplified process and has most of the fundamentals you need to know.

i made 3 batches to start but all the ones i made were terrible

so i decided that hey people can brew good tasting beer. then i went to my LHBS and splurged for a kit

now i cant stop brewing

My wife got me a kit for Christmas a few years ago and I am sure she has regretted it ever since. I made 3 batches from it, all were excellent, but I drank them so quickly that I wanted to move up from the 2.5 gallon batches so I bought your more standard setup to brew 5 gallon batches. Still, Mr. Beer started my interest in the hobby and you can produce very good beer with it as long as you stick to the basics of brewing, which as revvy stated you will find on this forum. One of the most important things I took as a beginning brewer from this forum was the need for cleanliness and something even more important--time. Mr. Beer's instructions on the length of time for fermentation and conditioning are very minimal and you will not produce the best possible beer following their instructions. Give the beer more time, and you will produce something just as good as any other extract recipe/kit you would create from a larger 5 gallon setup.