What's your story?

There has to have been a reason for all of us to start down this path to home brewing. Here is mine...A few years ago my wife and I were at a pub in Boston and I commented on a draft beer on the menu that cost $11.00. Because it was my birthday, my wife insisted that we try one. "It must be good if they are charging $11.00" she said. Little did I know that one glass of Schneider Aventinus was going to change my life! After convincing my favorite local package store to order it for me (at nearly $5.00 per bottle) we quickly began spending obscene amounts of money each week in our quest to try as many new beers as possible. Finally, we knew what we had to do...buy what we needed to brew our own. Now it's your turn. How about sharing your own reasons for getting involved in this totally rewarding hobby.

There already is a very long thread about this very subject. But here goes.
I started making wine with a kit dad got when I was 15. It turned out so good dad bragged to relatives & would break out a bottle. So I started making winr til about age 30 & lost interest. I got tired of waiting a year to sample the fruits of my labors.
So There we were Christmas of 2010,kids grown up for the most part,My wife & I watching videos & having a beer. Our middle son askes why don't I start making wine again? I told him the reason I just gave. Plus I/we liked beer better at this point anyway. The lil lightbulb went off,& we started searching youtube fore home beer brewing videos. Found pho,steeljan,craigtube,revolutionary brewer,to name a few. So we decided to order the Cooper's microbrew kit. It had bottles and everything. I made various beers out of Cooper's cans for a couple of years. Then my wife brewed a couple kits herself with my guidance.
Now I brew partial mash biab,even using the occasional Cooper's can as the extract part. I also collected many gadgets that make the job easier &/or faster. It's getting to the point where I need my own fridge & a fermentation chamber...

Simple: My stepchildren bought me a MrBeer kit for Christmas. Before even trying it I bought a couple of homebrewing books. Off we go!

My son in law gave me a basic kit and equipment for Christmas a couple of years ago and I got hooked. Now I brew more than he does...

I had been making wing for a few years, I mentioned to my wife that I would like to start making it so she bought me a kit for Father's Day. After a year or two of winemaking I was down at my brothers house and noticed he had a mr. Beer kit in his garage. I asked him if he used it and he said no, then he said take it if you want... I tried that out and made some horrible beer, but bought a couple refills to try, the first one was again bad but on the last one I stopped follow the directions and made a pretty good beer. I figured I needed to learn more so I spent about a year researching brewing I just started getting into it in the last few months

My wife got sick of me spending $10 on a 6-pack at the store, around the same time a LHBS opened up in town. The stars aligned.

When the current regime assumed power, I figured I would need a new hobby. So, I went back to an old hobby. I always hated dealing with the bottles, but kegging makes things SO much easier.

Now, kegs and brew gear have taken over the house.

I hated "beer" my whole life....didn't seem worth drinking except to get drunk. THEN, my boss invited me over to help him brew some beer. being a do-it-yourself kind of guy, I thought I could learn something useful. it was an interesting experience, but a little like cooking......weeks later he invited me back to sample the results and I was like "crap....where has this been all my life". the rest is history.

Walking around Bed Bath and Beyond with my wife around Christmas time 1.5 years ago, saw a Mr. Beer kit and jokingly told her she could get that for me. (Me not knowing there was more to homebrewing, sheltered life I know) Come Christmas time, opened a big box with a brewers best beginners kit. She took my idea, and as always, did some research and found that there was a different, more in depth way of doing things with more options. Then I found this wonderful thing called HBT. And I think SWMBO has been second guessing her decision to open the doors to this amazing hobby ever since.

I also didn't care much for beer originally. I grew up in an area where Coors, Budweiser, michelob and Busch were popular and many liquor stores and bars didn't have anything else.

Then I got sent to Germany for my job. What an eye opener.

I've been interested in brewing my own for quite a while, but I always thought it was too expensive to get into. i never shopped around to see what was involved, Unfortunately. I had thought about getting a Mr beer for a while, but that seemed like it was "fake" beer. Then I got a groupon notice for a starter kit from Midwest. I thought 'wow, 50 dollars plus the cost of bottles? I can do that! '

my first couple brews were kits. and while they were still much better than commercial beer, I later upgraded to allow me to do all grain.

While I am still fairly new, I have only had one batch that didn't turn out the way I wanted. I was aiming for something like Sprechers hard root beer but ended up with what tastes like a mix of beer and root beer, which doesn't seem to mix too well. I'm still sitting on them hoping age will fix them. I'm glad I didn't keg them or I probably would have emptied the keg.

I've got a hard lemonade going right now that I hope turns out good, as well as a rye ipa planned.

I just need to find some more kegs now. I haven't had any luck with Craigslist. People either want more than the lhbs charges or they seem to be gone in minutes.

My wife (soon to be ex) got me a Mr Beer kit as a gift Christmas of 2011. I jumped in right away and threw together my first batch that day before taking the time to do research on how to actually make decent beer. The first batch fermented too hot and had some off flavors. I punished myself for making bad beer by drinking it so I would learn from my mistakes. After a total of 4 Mr Beer batches I jumped right into 5 gallon all grain batches and recently bumped up to 11 gallon batches. I now have a 3 tap kegorator in my dining room and an entire closet full of brewing equipment. I have found that kegs are like rabbits and have a tendency to multiply...

I had been getting more involved in craft beer for about 2 years, and then one day in 2005 I saw the episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown on homebrewing and said "I need to do that!"

Got a nice kit from Northern Brewer for Christmas that year from my sister, and I've been doing it ever since.

Four years ago, new neighbors moved in behind us and in gesture of being neighborly I offered him some Summit Pale Ale and some homebrew my brother had made as we sat around my backyard campfire. He was impressed by how great the beer was compared to his offering of Michelob Golden Light. About month later he bought his first Homebrew kit and together we made his first brew. 2 weeks later I dug out my old homebrew equipment, bought some new stuff and brewed up my first batch. The homebrew bug that bit my neighbor had reinfected me. About 1 year later, a new neighbor moved in across the street from me. This new neighbor came over as I was out in the garage brewing a batch of Pale Ale. After a few homebrews he told me he was a homebrewer back before his two kids came into the picture and was fascinated by my brewing process. About 3 weeks later, I glance up from my lawn mowing in the front yard and see this new neighbor brewing in his garage. The homebrew bug strikes again, reinfecting my new neighbor.
Another year passes and a new neighbor moves into the neighborhood. He comes over as my 2 homebrewing neighbors and I were sitting out in my garage drinking each other's homebrew and giving feedback. We pour him a glass of pale ale and IPA and he enjoys both beers and our company and homebrewing conversations. About a month later, the homebrew bug infects this new neighbor. There are now four of us in the neighborhood that actively homebrew. Two of us have moved to All-Grain brewing and 3 of us are now kegging. The four of us homebrewers have converted quite a few of our other neighbors into moving away from BMC type beers and into the craft beer world. Although they have yet to be bitten by the homebrewing bug they have made the switch to craft beer.
Little steps...

In college older friends/neighbors would pitch in a 6-pack here and there at our barbecues. Naturally some of these beers were far superior to the malt liquor 40's that were my standard fare at the time. I got hooked and desperately wanted to try more styles, but had no reliable way to procure them so after quite a bit of homework I bought myself supplies at the local homebrew shop for my 20th birthday and down the rabbit hole I went. Four years of almost weekly batches later I'm entering competitions left and right and enrolled in the UCSD brewing program this fall. None of my friends around my age brew, but they sure as hell enjoy the finished products.

Around Thanksgiving 2011, I went to Williams-Sonoma, and saw a Brooklyn Brew Shop kit on sale. Since it was $40, I figured it wouldn't be too big an investment. Yeah, right. Eighteen months, and a couple grand later, and I'm still as clueless as I was that day.

I wanted to try to raise rabbits for food so that year for Christmas my family got me a lot of country living books which had chapters on making wine and beer. Rabbits were a no go due to county regulation, but making booze is 100% legal. Started with wine, got tired of waiting to drink it, started beer 3 months ago and have 6 batches under my belt.

How I got into craft beer is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f29/im-not-really-beer-snob-414782/.

How I got into homebrewing:
I had been a craft beer enthusiast for over a decade. I like to cook and many people have told me I'm good at it. Some of those people suggested that I combine my cooking abilities with beer and try making my own. One day a guy at work who had been pestering me to get into brewing sent me a link to a great sale Northern Brewer was having on starter equipment kits. I shared this with my wife who bought me a kit for my birthday. I waited until I read How to Brew and to buy the rest of the essentials to brew my first batch. After one extract kit and two mini-mash brews, I went all-grain. Having a blast!

a little over 14 years ago, I worked with a machinist that got me into the obsession. my paternal grandparents brewed for decades, and my other grandpa used to dabble with wine & beer. I knew this all growing up, but never gave much thought to it. then I got some homebrews from the machinist (best machinist I ever knew). he took me down to our LHBS & got me set up. finally went AG over the last year.

Was toying with the idea for a long while and after drinking some real swill. I thought that "there has to be something better than this" without paying 50bucks a case for beer. So far I've made some passable cider and some decent home made wine. Would like to try some simple easy beer at this point.

Back in the 1990s, Baltimore Brewing Company employed a friend of mine. I loved their beers and after talking with him and some other friends, realized I could buy kits to make my own beer. So I went to the LHBS and picked up a Brewer's Best Kit and started making extract kits. I thought about doing all grain but it seemed like you needed a bunch of stuff for that. After moving around a lot and being stuck in places with no LHBS, apartments too hot to actually make anything other than high temp saisons (if I only knew about the style back then), I finally moved to Cambridge, MA into a place with a lagerraum, er basement. Moved to all grain (had I known how easy it is, I would have done it years ago) and generally have fun making and drinking my own beer.

I would have to say that it's because I can. And because I think beer tastes good. And as with everything else if someone else can make it and it tastes good then I stand a reasonably good chance of making it as good or better. It was the same way with cooking for me.

All that being said, I have always enjoyed alcohol of varying types and after learning that it was illegal to distill I turned my sights to making beer.

Hard to say really. I like beer, but even more than that I like to know where my food comes from and what goes into making it. My wife and I are not really super-crazy foodies, but we like good food made from scratch. We love living foods like beer, wine, cheese, pickles and are slowly incorporating more and more of them into our home repertoire. We're also getting into canning our own garden produce.

I should also add that my paternal grandparents had a spanking paddle with a bent nail in it that had "Poverty Knob" burned across it. all my uncles hated the damn thing (guess why), but I still chose Poverty Knob as my home brewing brand. my granny's one of the toughest people I ever knew.

Billy-Klubb said:

I should also add that my paternal grandparents had a spanking paddle with a bent nail in it that had "Poverty Knob" burned across it. all my uncles hated the damn thing (guess why), but I still chose Poverty Knob as my home brewing brand. my granny's one of the toughest people I ever knew.

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Reminds me of St Mary's school in the early 60's. The principal nun had a wooden paddle with red electrical tape wrapped around it & roofing staples sticking out of it. She ruined a new pair of trousers I was wearing. boy,was dad po'd. But my Grandma was one of those that made you go out & cut a switch off the weeping willow in the side yard. If it wasn't cut like a buggy wip,she'd cut one & then cut you a new one!

unionrdr said:

cut a switch off the weeping willow in the side yard. If it wasn't cut like a buggy wip,she'd cut one & then cut you a new one!

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We had a crab apple tree... The branches were like leather. Smooth and bendable.

sister knew i enjoy cooking/creating stuff. she drew my name for christmas. she was shopping in bed, bath, and beyond, saw a mr beer, and that was my present. i did 2 batches with it, and moved to ag. had less gray hair then