What made you start brewing?

I'm just curious to see what made people decide to start brewing beer in the first place. Did you know someone who brewed? Did you drive past your LHBS one day and think, "I could do that!" Was it a Mr Beer Christmas present?

For me, believe it or not, it was quitting smoking. As you probably know, smoking numbs your sense of taste. After I quit smoking, BMC beers just weren't cutting it anymore; I needed more flavor. I tried some of the Michelob ambers, and they were okay... far from great. For a while I drank Guinness, but bottles and (*shudder*) cans were terrible compared to Guinness on tap. What I needed was a Kegerator, so I could get that same taste at home. I surfed around the internet for a while shopping for one, but at 500+ dollars, it just didn't seem worth it. A co-worker told me it would be cheaper to just build my own from a used fridge or freezer, so I thought I'd check it out. "Well, hey," I thought, "why stop with the keg? Why not make the contents as well?" I ordered the Mr Beer kit online, but quickly realized that 2.5 gallons of beer wasn't going to last long in my household. So here I am now, still completely new to the hobby, waiting for my tax return check to come in so I can order my real brewing kit, and get started for real.

Until then, I'll just have to lurk the forums and sample the joys of homebrewing vicariously through the seasoned vets here at HBT.

So, what made you start homebrewing?

It started in July 2006 when I decided to pick up a Mr Beer kit just for the heck of it. Living in Hawaii, the refills were non-existent unless you wanted to spend gazillions in shipping. Next batch was a small extract batch in the Mr. Beer Keg. By October of that year I found HBT, and had my 5 gallon kit at the end of November. Started AG in 2008, and spend way too much time thinking about beer, planning batches in my head, and looking for new commercial beers to try.

I do it for the process as much as the end result. It's fascinating that I can take a bunch of dried grains, add some water, yeast, etc.... and come out with a product that is just as good or better than what I buy.

For me it was simple... I have a friend that has been brewing for years. I "Love" his brew and constantly bugged the crap out of him to make more. He got smart on me and started suggesting I make my own..... The stingy bastard...lol

So, I gave it a shot and find I love the tinkering, experimenting, brewing, etc... almost as much fun as kicking back drinking it. Now when my wife mentions my homebrew I tell her "Don't blame me.... It's Kelly's fault!".....

It was either this or philandery. I got bored with philandery so I started making beer as a hobby.

Honestly, it was because I was bored and my ex said I needed a hobby. My stepdad homebrews, so I had him take me to the LHBS to buy an equipment kit and supplies. After that I was insatiably hooked.

Maveric777 said:

For me it was simple... I have a friend that has been brewing for years. I "Love" his brew and constantly bugged the crap out of him to make more. He got smart on me and started suggesting I make my own..... The stingy bastard...lol

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Lucky man. I wish I knew a single other person in my area that homebrews. I know there's a lot to learn from books and HBT, but it feels like so much more could be learned from knowing other people who brew. Even the closest LHBS to me is about a 4 hour drive... Ahh, the pros and cons to living in a small town.

Sipping coffee one day at my desk. I said to myself, "I want to brew my own beer." Punched it into Google. Found this site. A week later I was unwrapping my equipment from Mid-West.

Here I am, barely two months into it. Three batches (plus one 1 gal of Apfelwein) later. Two of them All-Grain.

In college, I had to complete a strategic management class. One of the companies we had to analyze was a microbrewery. This required much research, so we visited quite a few local microbreweries and brewpubs. I learned that 1) brewing people were some of the coolest and nicest group of people to hang out with and get to know, 2) brewing was not as complicated as I initially thought, and 3) I LOVE hand crafted brews! I was hooked and knew I was going to homebrew for the rest of my life. I too am fascinated by the process and still love learning about brewing every single day.

Wifey got tired of hearing me tell her how much i missed English beer, so she bought me a Mr Beer kit thinking it was somehow similar. This fired me up to search out how to make what I actually liked. The rest is history

I just basically always had this idea since I was little that I wanted to learn to make alcohol someday. Probably started with the desire to make moonshine when I was little from watching Dukes of Hazzard or something like that. Anyway, I'm not completely sure where I got the idea that it was something that I wanted to do - I just like to make things, do it myself you know ?

So a couple years ago I was on some website and saw an ad for this kit ( Coopers Microbrewery Kit ) so I bookmarked the page and thought about it for a whlie and then one payday I broke down and ordered it. Well I couldn't wait for it to be delivered so I went out the same day and found my local homebrew store and bought a couple of buckets and a carboy and a couple of extract kits.

My first beer was great, I really liked it a lot. The second couple of beers I made I think got fermented a little hot so the alcohol in them seemed pretty strong, and I would have got discouraged but Evan and Yooperbrew sent me some good homebrews in the beer swap so I figured I could do it, I'd just need to figure a way to control the temperature and be more careful with the sanitation.

Now, I'm a little bored with brewing actually. What I mean is that I'm not all hot to try brewing new and different beers anymore, I have enough knowledge about how its done that I can keep my kegs filled up with what I like to drink.

These days its a lot more about the drinking and less about the brewing. Brewing I kind of view as a necessary chore, so I'm not as inclined to spend all day brewing an All Grain beer anymore. I still do an All Grain sometimes, but if I do I'm more than likely going to do an All Grain and a couple of extract batches all at the same time and get it over and done with for a while. Don't brew nearly as much as I used too, just enough to keep the kegs full.

I drink way too much beer to keep buying 6,12,18, and 24 packs as well as pitchers. So I did a little research on the internet made a little 100 dollar investment and I am now making 5 gallons of beer for 30 dollars or less if my buddies wanna pitch in. I love this hobby.

I have always kicked around the idea, esp. after living 5 years in Germany. Just never got around to it due to always being deployed somewhere.

Finally retired from active duty and now am home all the time. Googled homebrewing and found this site. Lurked here on HBT for about a month and found out there was a LHBS near my work.

The rest is history. did 2 extract kits, 2 partial mash, built a MLT using this site, and have done about 30 AG recipes since. now have 4 kegs in the keezer (thanks again to HBT) and have 3 extras in the closet patiently waiting.

Wonder why i waited so long?

Well, in 1990 I stopped drinking in my holier than thou hippy-dippy pure body phase.
During that time, I was friends with a couple that had a very interesting roommate. When I went over to their house, there were all these mysterious glass jugs about, filled with orange, brown, and even black liquids, gurgling and belching out of some weird stopper on the top.

I asked what the hell they were, and he explained homebrewing, and offered me a glass.
At first, I was mortified. All the beer I tried prior to that was yellow, and I could see through it. He uncapped a brown ale, and poured it out and I disctinctly remember how sweet and nutty it was to my nose and thinking to myself "this doesn't look or even SMELL like beer".

Then I tried it, and loved it, and asked for another.

That opened me up to drinking better beers, brewing my own, and even a little competition. Multiple moves and awkward housing situations slowly eroded my equipment and brewing options, and by 1997 I stopped brewing altogether. It was SWMBO's gifting me a starter kit last Christmas that jump started me back into the hobby and now I've got a good pipeline going, and a keezer in the works!

I made a summer BBQ party in the backyard 2 years ago and I figured i was better off inviting the neighbors too since we would probably have loud music and people laughing and talking loudly until late in the night.

One of my neighbor shows up with a case of beer, tells me Hey wanna taste that? I brew it myself, tasted it, and was immediately hooked, i was already a huge enthusiast of locals micro-brews and was always trying to buy new kind of beers and i may be weird, but so far i have never tasted a beer i didn't like, i just love beer.

But of course i have my preferences like just anybody else.

Then i spent this evening talking with this neighbor and he kindly invited me to join him on his next brew day where taught me the basics of it all, heck, he even came with me at the local HB store to show me what i needed to buy to get started.

And i couldn't thank him enough, just love home brewing.

I was 22. I loved beer. Back then I hated BMC and I was driving to meet my then, new girfriend, future wife and now current ex.

I passed a home brew shop and noticed this bright light shining upon it. Some say it was the fluorescents from the "you can make your own beer" sign out front.. I think it was an epiphany.

I didn't stop that day, but it haunted my thoughts all night so bad that I had to make the trip back the next day. I swear I heard angelic music when I first stepped through the threshhold but it was an older building with a small doorframe and being a taller fellow, I banged my head on the low hanging bells that told the guy someone had just opened the door.

I walked around in a daze, partially from the mild concussion of the blow to the head, and stumbled upon my first brew kit.

I stumbled because the guy was a slob and there was crap all over the place. I came around the display of extract and tripped over a box he had in the middle of the floor.

You know those "Break it you bought it" signs? I broke it.

Not needing a sign, but wanting a kit, he talked me into everything I needed and a bunch of stuff I didn't.

I was blinded by the vast array of toys and extracts and bottles. I was also blinded by the 300 watt light bulbs this guy had in every socket. Christ he was blind!

I was more than happy to fork over part of my paycheck and most of my girlfriends for the next couple of months for books and magazines and ingredients. She never shared my love of the brew. She never shared much to be honest but that's a thing of the past and I still brew. I still love beer too.

Early B-day present from loving wife Xmas of '07. We have enjoyed sampling beers everywhere we went. She had given her father one years ago, which he tried once and decided it wasn't for him. She was hoping I'd do the same thing. No such luck!!

Went from Coopers kit, to LHBS kits to AG lickety split. Now I'm looking for a way to get a 10gal fermenter past her.

I have always loved beer. Last spring, a friend of mine wanted to start doing some woodworking, and started dropping by my workshop every night. After a few weeks, we got talking about how much beer we go through (around $200/week between the two of us) and he said, "Hey... I've got a few kegs, CO2, and used to brew a ton of beer... If you buy the ingredients, I'll make the beer". Ever since my first taste, I've been hooked on homebrew.

I moved in the summer, and after a few months, decided that I needed to start brewing on my own. After starting my first, I ran out and picked up another bucket and threw another batch in it. I think Friday I'll pickup a third bucket.

I also started making wine. I cannot get enough of brewing. When I keep reading, "Welcome to the addiction", I now understand just how true that is.

I did as a way to pick up chicks. Worked for awhile, at least until my wife found out.

Usual story. My wife got tired of me talking about wanting to try it and gave me a starter kit for Christmas '07. Thus began my relative alienation from wife and my 4, wait, 3, um, no 2, yeah 2 is right, 2 kids.

My love of exceptionally expensive beer is what got me started. I guess just the love of beer in general, and a desire to find a new hobby sort of collided and I ended up jumping head first into the hobby.

I am now 1 year and 10 months into it, and I am not looking back. I make great beer, I've won awards, and I plan on making the jump to professional as soon as I can pay down my debt.

I've always enjoyed drinking different types of beers. Even as a freshmen in college I didn't buy BMC (although it was acceptable for drinking games), and preferred micros and craft beers (I had a fake ID). At bars I'd gravitate towards anything I hadn't tried yet.

In the summer of '07 I was at work chatting with a coworker about beer. He mentioned homebrewing and told me about Mr. Beer kits. I immediately went back to my desk and ordered a kit online. After it arrived, I made the beer and thought it came out pretty well. I went back online and ordered another batch. And this is where I got lucky. The batch never arrived. The wrong house number had been entered, so the delivery man sent it back to Mr. Beer headquarters or wherever that stuff comes from. I had to pay $10 for this worthless shipping and quickly decided that there MUST be somewhere local to buy brewing supplies. Sure enough, just 25 minutes away was a homebrew store.

By September '07 I was brewing 5 gallon extract batches. I slowly gathered up the necessary equipment and began AG brewing in March of '08. My dad became a huge fan of my beers and I quickly sucked him into the hobby as well. Now we brew 10 gallons of beer nearly every weekend (of course keeping it under 200 gallons per household per year). I've also converted several of my friends to take up the hobby, but they are all extract brewers at this point. Best hobby. Ever. Period.

Wow, great input from everyone. This is quite a bit more of a response then I expected, but I guess everyone loves to talk about their hobby.

Shecky: How long were you able to keep your wife in the dark? If brewing beer attracts chicks, I need to know how much time I have until mine finds out.

carnevoodoo: Good luck on going pro! I trust you've read Brewpastor's story. Pretty inspiring really. Don't Try This at Home Parts 1-2-3

I loved craft beers, hated paying premium prices. So i make my own now.

I started off drinking the usual. BMC. I thought I was getting into the "craft zone" by drinking Guinness, and Killians Irish Red! :cross:

It was my interest in wine that got me interested in homebrewing. I soon discovered that, just like in wine, different styles and regions make a different drinking experience. I was hooked.

So I bought my starter kit from MidWest Supplies, and off I went. I never looked back.

boredom mainly; figured beer is basically the best substance on earth and it may be nice to know how to make the stuff...

I really love beer and I really love making things. Once I learned that I could make something that I was passionate about..... it was on like donkey kong.

Thinking of a career change.

My girlfriend got me a full setup and some extract for Valentine's
day. I don't know why I hadn't thought about home brewing prior
to that.

Bless her soul I don't think she knows what she's done

All the books in the University of Georgia library about building a still were missing.

My crippling addiction to beer...

I remember thinking about all the hobbies I've picked up, and what I had to show for them. Building computers, computer games, mtn biking, hiking...I love them all but they took time and I had no end product really. Well, building computer I had an end product but it got crappier over time...kind of depressing to spend $3k on a system, and 5 years later it's just a ho-hum system. I still bike for excercise but I really wanted to spend my time doing something that had a good end product. I started researching homebrewing on the web, and found this forum with it's wealth of information. I was excited that brewing was not hard, not expensive, but it was very possible and dare I say easy to make great beer! What's not to like? I ran down to the LHBS a couple weeks later after doing some research and picked out my starter kit, and my first pale ale extract kit.

I will say that this forum is what has really pushed me to improve my brewing techniques, and helped me brew better beer. And, you all are fantastic at keeping my addiction to new brewing equipment going strong! :rockin:

llazy_llama said:

Wow, great input from everyone. This is quite a bit more of a response then I expected, but I guess everyone loves to talk about their hobby.

Shecky: How long were you able to keep your wife in the dark? If brewing beer attracts chicks, I need to know how much time I have until mine finds out.

carnevoodoo: Good luck on going pro! I trust you've read Brewpastor's story. Pretty inspiring really. Don't Try This at Home Parts 1-2-3

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I've read it and I plan on going a different route. I will get some commercial experience under my belt first, and then I will move on with plans to have a brewery once I have that down. Maybe I'll end up a partner somewhere. I do know that I won't go at it alone at first, and I do know I'd have consultants and I would build it up properly and plan. It is a huge undertaking and I would want it to be perfect.

it all started when i watched the alton brown episode on food network......i thought that doesnt look to hard i can do that. then my wife got me a william's kit for christmas. the rest is history.

TeufelBrew said:

Early B-day present from loving wife Xmas of '07. We have enjoyed sampling beers everywhere we went. She had given her father one years ago, which he tried once and decided it wasn't for him. She was hoping I'd do the same thing. No such luck!!

Went from Coopers kit, to LHBS kits to AG lickety split. Now I'm looking for a way to get a 10gal fermenter past her.

Click to expand...

I started the same way, except it was Xmas day I was opening these large boxes thinking WTF? Wife was running around Xmas eve and happened to notice the LHBS actually open and while I didn't technically start until a few months later I love it!

I was 19, and it was cheaper than buying it.

That was a long time ago though, before malt and hops skyrocketed.

I used to be a John Deere Technician, fancy name for mechanic, and lived on Natty light by the case for years. Then I switched careers and began to travel the world and enjoyed the beers that suddenly became available. My taste buds and my friends were changing and since I live in a rural area, there are very few options outside of the BMC world. I decided a year + 1 month ago to embark on the journey of homebrewing and absolutely love it. I have yet to make the same beer twice, and I have enjoyed every one of them I have brewed. Plus an added bonus, I have introduced and converted some of my lifelong friends to beer with flavor and 3 have jumped onto the homebrewing bandwagon with me.

Bullbythehorns said:

Plus an added bonus, I have introduced and converted some of my lifelong friends to beer with flavor and 3 have jumped onto the homebrewing bandwagon with me.

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That's what I like to hear. I'm looking forward to the day I can give a mug of homebrew to a friend and have them say, "Wow, you made this!?! Could I do it too?"

I'm 7th generation in a German immigrant family in Texas, and that's probably all anyone needs to know right there.

But I make most my own fun stuff, including wooden canoes and kayaks, large astronomical telescopes, fly and conventional fishing tackle, etc; I grow a lot of my own fruits, vegetables and meats. The only mystery here is how on Earth it took so long for me to get into this nutty business. Heck, I've been thinking I ought to do it for YEARS.

I was always intriqued by my father's stories from his childhood of our grandfathers back on the farm brewing their own beer and root beer, and I've always wanted to learn how they did it. I don't know that I'm getting anywhere on that score, though; the more I learn the more I wonder how in the world they managed in rural Texas during the Depression and before. Wonder if the beer they made was really good or really awful? If anyone knows anything about home brewing in "yesteryear", please PM with whatever you have!

And boy oh boy, you ought to hear old Dad talk about the BBQ's they used to have... OMG. :cross:

Somewhere between collecting pinball machines and RC Airplanes I got into HomeBrewing. It was pre-WWW.com so I had to use the yellow pages to find a LHBS. Been doing it ever since. I don't actually recall what lit the spark, probably just curiousity.

I had tried using the BeerMachine 2000, with not-so-great results. One of my hockey teammates skated into me by accident, and broke my leg in three places. Since I was confined to a wheelchair and/or crutches for the next 18 months, I was in need of a hobby that didn't require much effort. (I was into camping, hiking, canoeing, etc). So, since they made wine, I said the least you can do is tell me how to do that to make up for breaking my leg. I learned a bit, but also learned wine takes forever! Since I had all the equipment for wine, I got online and found HBT and learned to make beer.

I started with extract and steeping grains, and it was good.

delarob said:

I was 22. I loved beer. Back then I hated BMC and I was driving to meet my then, new girfriend, future wife and now current ex.

I passed a home brew shop and noticed this bright light shining upon it. Some say it was the fluorescents from the "you can make your own beer" sign out front.. I think it was an epiphany.

I didn't stop that day, but it haunted my thoughts all night so bad that I had to make the trip back the next day. I swear I heard angelic music when I first stepped through the threshhold but it was an older building with a small doorframe and being a taller fellow, I banged my head on the low hanging bells that told the guy someone had just opened the door.

I walked around in a daze, partially from the mild concussion of the blow to the head, and stumbled upon my first brew kit.

I stumbled because the guy was a slob and there was crap all over the place. I came around the display of extract and tripped over a box he had in the middle of the floor.

You know those "Break it you bought it" signs? I broke it.

Not needing a sign, but wanting a kit, he talked me into everything I needed and a bunch of stuff I didn't.

I was blinded by the vast array of toys and extracts and bottles. I was also blinded by the 300 watt light bulbs this guy had in every socket. Christ he was blind!

I was more than happy to fork over part of my paycheck and most of my girlfriends for the next couple of months for books and magazines and ingredients. She never shared my love of the brew. She never shared much to be honest but that's a thing of the past and I still brew. I still love beer too.

Click to expand...

WOW

I started brewing several years ago when a roomate's dad gave us a starter kit. I was a drunk back then (still am to some extent) and thought homebrewing would be a sweet way to have cheap beer around all the time. During the first brew session, I became completely enchanted with the process. I got some friends into the hobby, and we started brewing at least once a week. Within six months, I went all-grain.