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NTXBrauer

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How many of you out there drink Home Brewed Beer only? I love home brewed beer, but wouldn't it be a commitment to drink solely what your hands produce.

With so many good craft beers out there, how many of you stand by your commitment to drink only what you (or another home brewer) have taken the time to make by hand?
 
Nope. You said it, too many other great beers out there. I gotta research, ya know.

And even though I usually have multiple styles on hand, sometimes I dont. And sometimes it's all weird stuff.
 
I drink my homebrew almost exclusively when I have a bunch on hand. I will get some craft brews when my pipeline gets low. I didn't brew much mid summer when it was too hot. There are so many recipes that I want to do that, if I brew often enough, I have no need to buy anything.
 
I would like to get to the point, that home brewed is all I consume. I am not there yet. but give me time. :) I need more refrigerator room for a keg system. (future project).
 
I am pretty much on homebrew unless it is a special occasion. if I run out of homebrew I generally don't drink untill more is made :D
The way I see it, craft beers cost too much to buy just for everyday beer and is reserved for those special occasions (it's $10+ per 500ml here), and cheap beer actually costs more to buy than it does to make my homebrew ($15 for a dozen BMC type beers on special vs. $20-25 per 15 litre batch ~ $7 per dozen homebrews)
 
I drink my homebrew almost exclusively when I have a bunch on hand. I will get some craft brews when my pipeline gets low. I didn't brew much mid summer when it was too hot. There are so many recipes that I want to do that, if I brew often enough, I have no need to buy anything.

I am pretty much on homebrew unless it is a special occasion. if I run out of homebrew I generally don't drink untill more is made :D
The way I see it, craft beers cost too much to buy just for everyday beer and is reserved for those special occasions (it's $10+ per 500ml here), and cheap beer actually costs more to buy than it does to make my homebrew ($15 for a dozen BMC type beers on special vs. $20-25 per 15 litre batch ~ $7 per dozen homebrews)

I'm almost pretty much drinking only homebrew too. No matter how much I have on hand, I find myself stopping occasionally at the local candy shop to grab a bomber of something special.
 
I'm almost pretty much drinking only homebrew too. No matter how much I have on hand, I find myself stopping occasionally at the local candy shop to grab a bomber of something special.

Yeah I don't think I would ever go 100% homebrew - what would you do at a bar, sneak homebrew in and get you hit in the toilets :D
They have just installed a "growler filler" out my local liqour store - basically it sounds like you can take you bottle (growler, 500ml swingtop, etc) and fill it with a selection of craft beers for much cheaper than buying the pre packaged (about 1/2 the price I think).
 
I drink mostly homebrew at home, but I like sampling other things when I am at restaurants. Last night I tried 3 Oktoberfests in a flight, plus 3 IPAs. Was pretty awesome.

I do pick up the individual bottles at Trader Joe's, as I can try several options and reuse the bottles. :mug:
 
I drink homebrew 99% of the time. Biggest reason is cost. I can brew 10 gallons for roughly 40 dollars or buy roughly 4 six packs. Going out is even worse....5-7 bucks per beer!! I still have commercial beers that I received for Christmas sitting in my fridge that I am slowly working my way through. Homebrewing can be expensive enough without tacking on buying commercial beer.
 
If I run out ...I never run out. Buy beer 1-2 when out for dinner or maybe a 6 pack if it's in the budget.
2 sixers = 5 gallons of mine

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We drink pretty much all home brew. 2 propane burners and 2 brew pots lets me do 2 five gallon batches pretty much at the same time. All extract. Quick, easy, and delicious.
 
There are too many great beers in the world to only drink my own. I generally drink mostly my own beer except for special bottles I pick up; i.e. sours or a good bomber of DIPA, which I rarely brew myself as drinking 10 gallons of DIPA takes a LONG time. Also, when I don't have something hoppy on tap, I do find myself keeping some IPA in the fridge for when I'm in the mood for hops. But at home, the bulk of my drinking is my own homebrew.

Heck, my wife is a great cook, and she cooks most of our meals. But we still go out to restaurants from time to time. Nothing wrong with letting someone else do the hard work for a change!
 
There are too many great beers in the world to only drink my own. I generally drink mostly my own beer except for special bottles I pick up; i.e. sours or a good bomber of DIPA, which I rarely brew myself as drinking 10 gallons of DIPA takes a LONG time. Also, when I don't have something hoppy on tap, I do find myself keeping some IPA in the fridge for when I'm in the mood for hops. But at home, the bulk of my drinking is my own homebrew.

Heck, my wife is a great cook, and she cooks most of our meals. But we still go out to restaurants from time to time. Nothing wrong with letting someone else do the hard work for a change!

This.

There is just too much good beer out there to stick just to my own. I make hard cider, hard lemonade, wine and beer, but I live within 15 miles of nearly a dozen craft breweries, plus whenever I travel, my wife and I always hit up the local craft breweries and wineries. I get inspired by trying other brewer's creations, plus there are a lot of styles I want now and then and don't need 5 gallons of. Plus, when I'm at a craft brewery, I always try to get a tour and shoot the **** with the brewer, maybe score a yeast culture to make a slant with. Last month I toured a craft brewery 30 miles to the south and got a six pack out of it!

Of course, to each his own, but I like to hang with the whole craft beer culture too much to drink just my own.
 
passedpawn said:
I'm almost pretty much drinking only homebrew too. No matter how much I have on hand, I find myself stopping occasionally at the local candy shop to grab a bomber of something special.

Pretty similar. For me, it's Friday afternoon at the Pub where I'll have 1-2 craft beers; otherwise it's Homebrew.
 
If I'm home I drink homebrew. I have 5 different beers on hand, several bottles of Apfelwein of different ages and a bunch of CostCo wine I am struggling to consume.

I'm not a heavy drinker so even if I gave up brewing right now it would be several months before I'd be forced to buy anything.

That said if I, for instance, go visit my parents for the weekend I don't bring homebrew with me unless I bring some for my brother (Dad won't drink it). Instead I'll hit up the liquor store and try to find something new or different. Or maybe I'll pick up something similar to a brew I've done recently so I can compare.
 
For me, the decision to not ONLY drink my own brew is more of a quantity problem than a quality problem. If I could expand my operation and always have a fridge full of my beer, then there's no doubt in my mind that I'd stick with my own sweat and blood. Plus, I have plenty of beer drinking friends who don't homebrew to slide me the occasional odd-ball store-bought brew.
 
I'm almost pretty much drinking only homebrew too. No matter how much I have on hand, I find myself stopping occasionally at the local candy shop to grab a bomber of something special.

That's how we are too! We drink mostly homebrew, but when we're out somewhere especially when traveling, we'll pick up a sixer or two.
 
It's been said already, but I'll repeat it. There are way too many really good craft beers out there to just drink my own. As a beer artist one must stay inspired...
 
I had 4 batches of beer built up for summer. My hybrid lagers held there quality the longest. Gettin close to the temp range where I can brew more of those. Cheap to produce & last a long time. so over summer,I'd buy something different at the beginning of the month for the sake of research. but have my home brew the rest of the time. Finally finished them last week. Got two IPA's fermenting now. Then it's on to an ESB & another batch of Whiskely ale.
 
Not possible, what would I drink in the pub? And I'd miss out on cask, I don't drink enough at home to be able to justify having a cask setup.

I've certainly cut down a lot on buying beer from the shop, but I do still try different commercial beers
 
I drink my homebrew at home 99% of the time. Once a month or so I'll pick something up to conduct "research." I always experiment when we go out to eat.
 
At home I drink homebrew almost exclusively (plenty of time for craft beer 'research' when I'm out and about).

The primary reason I drink homebrew at home is to finish off kegs and make room for more. I love to brew and often find myself with more beer on hand than I need. First world problem...
 
still n00b at this, brewing for 1 year, 12 batches and this last one, though quite good, still isn't good enough for me to give up commercial

plus there's too much good stuff out there to give up R&D
 
Now that I've got a 6G BB,my problem is getting the scratch to fill it & both fermenters at once. I'm thinking of using the BB to brew more of my hybrid lager. Wanna build up a truckload of those,as they store quite well. It'd be nice to max out the ol' fermenter stand,which can hold 3 FV's & a bottle tree.
 
Mainly drink HB at home. Will not buy anything from grocery beer isle as those are mainly BMC and lightstruck (why the heck do they put the flavorful beers directly under fluorescent bulbs?) messes because they do not turnover often enough. Will on occasion pick up a couple 6-ers from the bottle shop, but that is not very often. Will buy commercial brews at the bars, and drink them at friends houses. Yeah it all depends. My pipeline grows and shrinks in waves, when it is full there is no point in buying commercial, when it is emptying I brew, and occasionally stretch it with some commercial. Though there is commercial on hand for the non HB guests.
 
I know we joke about it but there is an actual side of research to buying commercial brews. I only buy beer I've never had and my palette is so much more honed in on what I like. I also taste some crazy styles or takes on a style that I wouldn't otherwise. It really helps me with decisions in homebrewing. I would never brew a style unless I've had several commercial versions of it.

And there are just so many great beers out there, and interesting takes that I need to taste. I also don't really like drinking the same beer more than a few times, no matter how good it is. So buying beer helps me to mix it up
 
I know we joke about it but there is an actual side of research to buying commercial brews. I only buy beer I've never had and my palette is so much more honed in on what I like. I also taste some crazy styles or takes on a style that I wouldn't otherwise. It really helps me with decisions in homebrewing. I would never brew a style unless I've had several commercial versions of it.

And there are just so many great beers out there, and interesting takes that I need to taste. I also don't really like drinking the same beer more than a few times, no matter how good it is. So buying beer helps me to mix it up

Same here. If an unfamiliar style catches my interest while crawling HBT, I will buy commercial to try it before committing myself to several hours of work to produce 5 G of what may be swill to my tastebuds.

Other than research though, I do drink only what I or my buddy brews.


The whole reason I got into HB was to cut back on beer costs. While I have grown to enjoy the hobby itself in addition to the beer, it would still seem kinda pointless if I was brewing and still regularly buying commercial.
 
At home, I drink homebrew 85% of the time. Sometimes I need inspiration, and sometimes I feel like an IPA and I don't have an IPA.
 
With the harvest season here and all the seasonal craft brews hitting the shelf, I can agree it would be difficult to pass on trying something new.
 
I have the opposite problem. I tend to buy MORE beer now that I brew than what I did before.
 
I don't buy session beers anymore, make plenty of um.... but I definitely buy more craft beer now than before I started homebrewing.

Not sure I'll ever be able to exactly recreate the brews I truly love so after trying, I buy.
 
75/25 homebrew/craft brew

I love to try new things and I don't have the patience to brew certain styles (sours).
 
I mostly drink my homebrew. Kind of tough to put a % on it for me though, but I'd say it's probably around 90% of the time I'm drinking homebrew. I have been, for the most part, saving my commercial drinking for going out to dinner or with friends to a bar. Since the football season started though, I will admit I've purchased some Miller Lite to have on hand. I love watching college football and drinking beer with friends. So, to keep from getting wasted and drinking 2000 calories, I split up the drinking and put some miller lites in there.
 
The whole reason I got into HB was to cut back on beer costs. While I have grown to enjoy the hobby itself in addition to the beer, it would still seem kinda pointless if I was brewing and still regularly buying commercial.

I understand this rationale... For as much as we joke that "it's cheaper to brew your own" is just a lie to justify this hobby to SWMBO, it actually is cheaper as long as you don't go off the deep end equipment-wise.

For me, though, I got into the hobby because I want to craft my own amazing-tasting beer, and the money savings [or not] are just gravy. Brewing does happen to be a great way to bring down overall beer costs so I don't feel bad about buying some stupid-priced bottles like the Evil Twin Femme Fatale Brett IPA that I drank yesterday :ban: :mug:
 
I mostly drink my homebrew. Kind of tough to put a % on it for me though, but I'd say it's probably around 90% of the time I'm drinking homebrew. I have been, for the most part, saving my commercial drinking for going out to dinner or with friends to a bar. Since the football season started though, I will admit I've purchased some Miller Lite to have on hand. I love watching college football and drinking beer with friends. So, to keep from getting wasted and drinking 2000 calories, I split up the drinking and put some miller lites in there.

I can smoke a helluva brisket but I still keep hotdogs in the fridge. Same thing :mug:
 
Sorry, can't help myself

They’ve done studies, you know. 60 percent of the time, we HBTers drink homebrew every time.
 
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