Cheaper beer

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.

RandallBrew

Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2008
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Im looking to make cheaper beer.

I only want to buy enough to make 1-2, 5 gallon batches.

Im thinking of just buying
8 pounds Light Liquid Malt Extract
4 oz Cascade Hops
and some good ale yeast.

Would this taste decent? Any suggestions?

Is there a good cheap recipe that tastes good?

I dont mind what type of beer it is, except he has to be a ale..

Any suggestions for a good website?

Thx for looking:mug:
 
This website has a wealth of knowledge and recipes. Do some searching. Your initial hack at a recipe has merit, but you should do a little more reading before simply dumping all of those ingredients into anything and attempting to make beer. Try www.howtobrew.com for a basic brewing reference.

Why do you only want to make 2 batches? And why must it be so cheap?
 
I think most of us get into the hobby to produce beers we can't buy. Considering even the cheapest equipment necessary (been there, done that), it would be cheaper to go out and buy some Natty Light or something.
 
Most of us here are brewing to make the highest quality beer possible and most do not care what it costs us. May I suggest two things to you, buy How to Brew and read read then read more so you don't waste your money making bad beer and second if cheap is really your highest concern they go buy King Cobra and drink it.
 
some of these kits cost $30-$40 each. Thats a little more than half price for store bought beer. Plus the time and effort make brewing at home not that much of a money saver.

I guess my question was if I could buy in bulk for 1 maby 3 batches. If there was a simple but decent to great tasting beer recipe that somebody knew of.
Thx for replies
 
Hey RandallBrew, those ingredients can make you a couple of batches of pretty good beer. Might want to consider maybe 10 #s LME instead though, and some specialty grains wouldn't set you back that much and could add a lot to what you end up with.
 
some of these kits cost $30-$40 each. Thats a little more than half price for store bought beer. Plus the time and effort make brewing at home not that much of a money saver.

Considering the kind of beer I buy (when I buy) it costs me usually 16 bucks for either a 4 pack (Dogfish Head) or 14 for a 6 pack of a Bell's Beer, of 5 bucks for a 22 ouncer of a Rogue Beer...30-40 bucks for TWO CASES OF FANTASTIC AND FRESH BEER is not really that much.

If I buy one 6 pack (for ease let's say it cost 13 bucks) that means that a case of 24 beers would be $52 bucks...For 2.5 gallons of beer.

5 gallons of really good beer at that price would be $104.00

So to me 30-40 bucks for a kit that makes a beer on par, if not better than most of the craft beers in the store, though not cheap, is still a better bargain than buying 2 cases of the same beer...

(I've done a side by side taste test, with people, of my Rogue Deadguy Clone side by side with the real thing, and mine always comes out ahead...A 22 ounce bomber of Rogue Dead Guy sells locally for $5.95)

There are 640 fluid ounces in a 5 gallon batch....640 fluid ounces of Rogue Dead Guy would cost me 172.55 +Without the 10 cent/bottle deposite I would be paying for 2 cases.

Having said that, If I make my own recipes Ala cart with extract w/grains then it is even cheaper at my lhbs than the premade kits, especially if I have built up a supply of hops over times, as well as a yeast bank...

By brewing allgrain the same recipes can cost me around 15 dollars a batch....By brewing small 2.5 gallon AG batches on my stovetop...I've had 2.5 gallon batches cost me $9.95, and for twice that I get 2 different cases of beers..

AND I enjoy brewing, and thinking about brewing, spending time with other people who are as passionate about good beer and food as I am...both in my area AND online here...AND to me spending a 6-8 hour day brewing Isn't a waste of time...It's doing something that I love, and that is more precious to me than then money I spend on recipes and gadgets.....

You won't get much sympathy/help here if you wanna just make cheap swill to get plastered with, which kind of sounds like it by some of your posts...if that's the case go buy a couple of cases of whatever Anheiser Busch is deep discounting these days. Take a look at some of the threads around here and you'll see that people like that usually just get run off...

If you want to make Great Beer, you will get plenty of help....If you like to DIY or want to cut some costs, like how I mentioned there are plenty of threads around here, a lot of us like to find bargains, and make our own beer....But not at the sacrifice of quality and taste. We leave that to the likes of Budweiser.....
 
I havnt drank enough beer I guess to know what good beer is. Good beer to me is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale $24 a 24 pack. Thats where I was coming up with my figure.
Ive only brewed beer once and it took longer than I expected and I was up late. I think brewing in the day would be more enjoyable.
 
i mean ive only brewed a few batches and it is extremely fun and just think when its done you get to drink it... how could you pass that up! and ive been dropping hundredr of dollars on stuff my bank account hates my new hobby hah... i mean 26q turkey fryer hah. mmm
 
It's been said many times: if you're in this hobby to save money, you have found the wrong hobby. Equipment + time + ingredients will cost you far more than simply buying a few cases of half decent beer.

However, if you're ready to enjoy brewing beer for the sake of brewing (and drinking) beer, buying in bulk and building your own gear will make this hobby far less expensive.
 
Hobbies were not meant to save money!

Hobbies = big hole in ground into which money is tossed :)

Includes bass fishing, hunting, off-roading, ....
 
You'll have to really step up bulk buying to make it much cheaper. For malt extract, that's a 50 pound case for about $100. Also, a pound of hops used to be a bargain compared to by the ounce, but it's not true anymore. All grain brewing and reusing yeast is about as cheap as you can get once you get past the equipment needed.
 
I havnt drank enough beer I guess to know what good beer is. Good beer to me is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale $24 a 24 pack. Thats where I was coming up with my figure.
Ive only brewed beer once and it took longer than I expected and I was up late. I think brewing in the day would be more enjoyable.

My .02 is, look into some extract kits, (so far all I have used), and at this price you will double your inventory...most kits are $22.0-$29.00 for 5 gal., but your brew will be far better than any store bought, watered down, "Beer". I started brewing in January as a hobby, now I have a hard time drinking anything else. As far as time, I am an early riser anyway (4:30-5:00) so on Saturday or Sunday morn I start to brew and am done an cleaned up by 9:30 or 10:00am.

Good Luck and Cheers
 
I never thought I would ever say this. But I would almost recommend trying a Mr Beer kit and just seeing if brewing beer is what you really want to do. It's extremely easy and might just be a pointer in the right direction.

Now I've got to sanitise my keyboard for the Mr. Beer reference ;)
 
Hobbies were not meant to save money!

Hobbies = big hole in ground into which money is tossed :)

Includes bass fishing, hunting, off-roading, ....


Buy a boat! I got rid of a 27' sailboat last winter- talk about an albatross!

Break
Out
Another
Thousand

Enjoy your homemade beer, it's way better than what you could buy at the store for the same price.

Lets use Budwieser:

1 case of 12 oz Bud bottles today-local- $15.99

1 batch of home brewed beer from morebeer.com

http://morebeer.com/view_product/18326/102178/Mild_Brown-_Extract

Way better beer-2 cases, you did it yourself and you save money!
 
Im looking to make cheaper beer.

I only want to buy enough to make 1-2, 5 gallon batches.

Im thinking of just buying
8 pounds Light Liquid Malt Extract
4 oz Cascade Hops
and some good ale yeast.

Would this taste decent? Any suggestions?

Is there a good cheap recipe that tastes good?

I dont mind what type of beer it is, except he has to be a ale..

Any suggestions for a good website?

Thx for looking:mug:

That will probably taste pretty good. Not the best beer ever, but still good. Below I have Palmer's pale ale recipe. He uses some pricier DME instead of some LME, but also uses fewer hops. Use a higher AA hop than Cascade for bittering and you won't need 4 ounces total. (Note the second yeast pack is a backup).

No reason not to make "cheaper" beer. There are certain places you shouldn't go -- such as adding sugar instead of malt, or not using hops -- but I don't see why yours is a bad question. We all make trade-offs for the sake of value.

BTW: buying in bulk won't help if you don't brew a lot, because of issues of freshness. Don't buy a case of LME and just let it sit there.

Recipe
Cincinnati Pale Ale
Ingredients for a 5 gallon batch

3-4 lb. Pale malt extract syrup, unhopped
2 lb. Amber dry malt extract
12 AAU of bittering hops (any variety) For example, 1 oz. of 12% AA Nugget, or 1.5 oz. of 8% AA Perle
5 AAU of finishing hops (Cascade or other) For example, 1 oz. of 5% Cascade or 1.25 oz. of 4% Liberty
2 packets of dried ale yeast
 
In one of my magazines King Cobra came out on top in the malt liquer 40oz catagory.

I think a 40 sells for about 3$ at the grocery store...

if you got a King Cobra clone (why i dont know). you couldhave 1,000 gallons of KC on tap.

if you wanted "cheap beer"

I got into this to try it and have some fun.. i'm not one for patience but this helps some. I figured 30$/5gallons was a pretty good deal considering a 22oz bottle of micro at the store can go up to 5-6$ a bottle.... multiply that out and 2 cases of 22oz beer ... it gets expensive.

I have one bottled and brewing another one tomorrow and putting the primary into a secondary so i can free up a fermenter for a steam beer... and cheaper than buying the same quantities in the store.
 
I havnt drank enough beer I guess to know what good beer is. Good beer to me is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale $24 a 24 pack. Thats where I was coming up with my figure.
Ive only brewed beer once and it took longer than I expected and I was up late. I think brewing in the day would be more enjoyable.

I am drinking beer from my first brew kit. I am really suprised how well it tastes. I like becks beer and I did the truebrew german light kit and this stuff is actually better than becks. I am sure if I brewed it again, I wouldn't get the same taste as I boiled outside during a snow storm on a side burner from my grill and didn't get a good rolling boil, so I boiled longer than instructions said because of that. The waiting time is what really sux.

I wish I started another batch prior to tasting this one. I think you will find that you end up giving some away as your proud of what you have accomplished thus making your beer even more expensive for yourself.

Anyway, It's not cheaper but I am convinced ya do get better/tastier beer.
 
Ha!...I dug it out, but can't remember what I was searching when stumbling upon it.

Zombie thread..that's funny..
 
WOW!

Zombified.jpg


:mug:
 
You'll have to really step up bulk buying to make it much cheaper. For malt extract, that's a 50 pound case for about $100. Also, a pound of hops used to be a bargain compared to by the ounce, but it's not true anymore. All grain brewing and reusing yeast is about as cheap as you can get once you get past the equipment needed.

How did I get this far before I realized it was an resuscitated thread? :ban:
 
Yeah, I was 3/4 through it b4 I noticed the dates on it as well...... At least it wasn't another resurrection for insurrection like we had goin' last week!
 
Back
Top