Why do you brew?

The other day my mother-in-law asked me why do I brew? Realizing I had an incredible opportunity to say what I really felt I judiciously discarded those possible answers and replied something like, 'Beer is Good'... She shook her head and went back to ragging on something else. So I started to think about why I am obsessed with brewing. For me it is the chemistry and the cooking. Combine that with a great software package (beer smith for me but there are many others like promash, etc.) where you can easily do your tweeking and bam - I become the major beer geek that I am. Even after the brewing there is the 'watching', the listening 'Blub.... Blub.....Blub..... Blub'. Then the bottling/kegging and the after product, the way it looks! The perfect head, satisfying taste... Maybe I'll just stick with, 'Beer is Good'...

So, why do you brew?

Yeah , I agree. I love to cook and I find Brewing to be very similiar. I like the feeling I get when I brew, you know that feeling that you are making something that will produce a final product. Something that you can't necessarily find at the store (atleast not around here). I mainly homebrew cuz I grew tired of the variety of beers out there.

I am also quite fond of the process of grain to glass. I love them yeasties!

I like tinkering... I like reading about stuff I have never known about... I like having someone say "Wow, you made this??". There's a ton of reasons why I brew. Why did I become an obsession?? I have no idea!

I brew, because I like experimentation. The beer part is cool, but it is like one large mad scientist experiment, and you get to build stuff.

I brew because i like to build things and beer brewing has tons of DIY projects. What will happen when i've built everything i can think of.... I duno

The Pol said:

I brew, because I like experimentation. The beer part is cool, but it is like one large mad scientist experiment, and you get to build stuff.

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You took the words right outta my mouth! Was turning the chest freezer in the garage into a keezer before my first batch had even been racked to the secondary! Beer is Good!

I love to brew because it just seems limitless in its levels of information. I love to learn and to 'figure out' what makes a lager a lager, a stout a stout, etc. and homebrew was just too much to resist.

I guess it comes from a natural tendency to wonder how things work. . .

So I can say "I made that", the building, the science of it and oh yeah THE TASTE.

I do it for the smiles that I see when people try my beer and say "you made this?". And that includes the fellow in the mirror.......

I tried it because my BIL made some drinkable beers and he told me it was cheap. Now I just love the whole process. Tinkering with recipes, going out on a limb just to see what happens. It isn't necessarily the finished product that I'm after its the fun getting there. Kind of like why I have a vegetable garden. It's learning about things and then seeing if I can use that information.
Plus a big plate of home grown french fried sweet potatoes and stuffed zucchini with a pint of home brew makes me very, very, happy, not to mention popular.

I've spent years perfecting my smoked brisket and smoked spare ribs, along with my sourdough bread and other specialty menus items.

We have three or four signature beers that we've worked to create that are pretty tasty. When a guest asks, "where can I buy this beer?", the response is "you can't".

So I guess beer brewing expands our hospitality and give us the chance to make something that's unique to our home.

My MIL gladly drinks my beer. Only problem is, she doesn't have much tolerance. Watching her get lazered on apfelwein was hilarious, though.:cross:

As for why I brew? Because I must.

I brew, therefore I am.

If I simply consumed other people's beer, I'd just be a chain breaker. That's no good. I say, be part of the chain. Our human nature commands us to be social creatures and I think that needs to extend to what we consume. I brew, I share and I drink. Give back and you'll get back.

Besides, when's the last time you saw a tequila oak aged, agave nectar boosted Western European Pilsner available commercially?

"It's like a chemistry set you can drink."

I gotta have projects to keep me busy. If I'm not building or tinkering with guns, computers, or various other electronics, I'm working on my brewery or brewing.

Or, I am sampling the results...

Droooool....

:cross:

Some say golf is a "good walk spoiled". You could just go for a nice long walk. Or, you could spend a bunch of money on some heavy equipment to lug around, spend even more money to stop and hit a ball with said equipment, chase/find ball and hit again until you get it into the hole. Then repeat 17x.

So why would anyone play golf?
Obv because they enjoy it.

Why do I brew?
Because I enjoy it.
But...why do I enjoy it?
I don't know. I don't know why I like the taste of brocolli but hate the taste of cauliflower. I'm just wired that way.

You could ask why does she like to rag?
But you know the answer...because she's wired that way.

i agree with a lot of other posters, i started because of my brother in law, i have a good friend that also brews. I love beer, and i love to see what i can do with it. I find the whole process interesting and "cool" in that you can turn a cooler full of grains into sweet liquid goodness.

It's also fun to sort of "geek out" with my brother in law and friend when we get on a good discussion about this and that. Sampling everyones beers, and then creating something that is "your own", especially when you either have people over or bring a keg to a party and people want to know where to get it.

Probably like many others on here, deep down I am a nerd. I have had a tendency to find something I like and totally imerse myself in it, researching it and reading all I can. Beer is different in that I can take that research and for a relatively small cost and in the comfort of my own home, carry out that research. Then I can share that with many other like minded people either in person or even on this forum. It all just worked out in that I liked craft beer before I started brewing. In all honesty, I love to understand beer and beer styles, and I really love to be the guy at the bar that my friends ask, "order me something I'd like." I like being THAT guy. Cheers!

Not sure why, but the idea of brewing my own beer, making my own bread, cheese, etc... just really feels satisfying to me.

And it's more wholesome than pouring salt on slugs anyway.

More of a hobby for me. I retired this year and it's something to fill some slack time.

The bad thing is that the best brewing/fermenting weather here is spring/fall and that's when I'm the busiest with other things.

Cost enters into it too. Craft brews are running $10 for a six here.

Why do I brew? Let me count the ways......

Creativity! I've tried so many outlets for creative expression. Music, writing, painting, drawing you name it, and I hated them. Cooking is my creative expression. Brewing has become a natural extension of that creativity. Another part of this is taste. I can pick and choose the exact taste flavor profile I want.

Brewguyver! Making things is fun. Making things that function from stuff other folks said can't work is one killer high! It's part mad scientist, part crazy engineer. Bet yer sweet a$$ I can make that from aluminum cans, duct tape and a little sweat.

Relaxation! Brew days leave me a little tired with all the washing, but I'm so very relaxed and comfortable after brew days. It's also relaxing to take care of the ancillary stuff during the week for brewing. Cleaning kegs, swithing them in the kegerator, organizing supplies, equipment and recipes.

Fun! Come on. Making beer is just a really enjoyable enterprise! After two years, I still get a kick thinking, 'I made BEER!", especially after tasting a really good one or finishing a long brew day.

That's a nice start, have to get back to work now.

WenValley said:

We have three or four signature beers that we've worked to create that are pretty tasty. When a guest asks, "where can I buy this beer?", the response is "you can't".

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This is why I brew... Complete satisfaction that I have made something worthy of purchase; but mine, start to finish mine. The fact that its amazing to say to someone that "you can't buy this beer anywhere." Another major reason, because so many people are SCARED to try homebrew: i do it to enlighten people.

I do it for fun, for relaxation, to save money and yet waste more money.

I enjoy tinkering, AND being a "brewguyver." something satisfying about taking random things and incorporating them into 'grain to glass.'

It comes down to this, yesterday for the first time in 5 months of not drinking BMC i tried a budlite wheat and wanted to vomit. just to make sure i was really was over BMC i tried some regular budlite and some budweiser also. All so tasteless, all so bland. I couldn't believe i was paying 20 bucks for a 30 rack of that garbage in the past. 20 bucks i could throw into ingredients to craft my own magical concoction.

... off to planning/making some more gadgetry and recipes...

Because pulling your own homemade that was made on equipment you built from a keezer you built and setup, is the epitome of MAN.

Our friends came over from Cincy this past weekend. Friend Jerome says, "I have to admit, I am very jealous of the kegerator". And that's when I knew that I had won
Also upon tasting my Apfewlein he said, "This is great, it doesn't taste like that Jet Fuel my Father in law makes at all!".

Elfmaze said:

I brew because i like to build things and beer brewing has tons of DIY projects.

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I'm with Elfmaze. I am a builder:

• I build software
• I build cars
• I build(built) a shed
• DIY projects around the house are "builder" projects
• Cooking is "building food" and I build some food
• Brewing is "building" beer

As a plus, "Beer is Good" and I can share it with others.

I'm a hobby sort of person.

Brewing beer is a sort of hobby, like cooking, or chemistry, or biology, or all of it. It's a long term love affair for me. I don't get to brew very often (because I'm the only one drinking it, usually) so I don't get much feedback. But there is lots to do and learn between batches.

I enjoy trying hard to learn enough to make great beer. The building stuff is a major part of the fun. The drinking the beer is another great aspect. I could afford to buy craft beer only, but I enjoy making my beer and supplementing my purchases with my own beer. I'll be honest. I still buy craft beer, and I doubt I'm saving money at this point by brewing my own.

This is a great question right now as I am in the middle of taking a personality insight program at work. We hired a business coach / psychologist to come in to our office and help us determine how we can work better together by understanding each others drivers more effectively.
It turns out that I work in a very fast paced, often stressful environment - but I am more of an idealist, artistic and "right brained" thinker.

I was discussing this with my wife the other day and I told her that the coach recommended that I find an activity outside of work where I can sort of release that creative side of myself in order to create a balance.
My wife said, "that's probably why you enjoy making beer so much."

I am a drunk!

And buying craft brew get to be very expensive.

But honestly, this is just an extension of my love for cooking.

- I enjoy learning about beer styles and how to brew them.

- I enjoy the experimentation aspect of brewing and that feeling of accomplishment when I pour a pint of a damn good beer and say, "I made that".

- Brewing has created alot of opportunities to expand my knowledge in chemistry, mircobiology, welding and engineering.

I like to brew because it's easy to learn but difficult to master. You can start with a relatively small investment and make very good beer, but as you build your knowledge and equipment, you can improve your beer. It's challenging, but not frustrating because no matter how much you do wrong, you usually end up with beer. I have a thirst for knowledge and brewing quenches that thirst (puns intended). I also tend to be somewhat analytical, so brewing allows me the opportunity to trouble-shoot my processes and strive for continuous improvement.

Oh, and I like to drink beer, too.

I love beer.

And I am planning for the possible end of the world. If I can't brew my own beverages, who will do it for me?

I just like to make things. When the result is beer, its pretty sweet.

I think being in the Beer Zone, helps to balance my life. Although brew day can be a tad stressful, well more busy than stressful I guess, it's a different kind of stress. As much as I love brewing I am always happy on brew day after everything is cleaned and the fermenter is in a dark cool place and I can put my feet up and enjoy a home brew whilst I think about the potential of the batch I just created...

The main reason I got into brewing seriously after a few extract batches spread out over a couple of years is because I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and grew to really enjoy the beers up there.

I am now in California and have a really hard time finding some of the beers I grew to love. Now I try to replicate them in my own way.

In the meantime, I have found a few California beers that I like but still hard to find where I live for things like Pliny but still doesn't fill the void of not having northwest beers at the nearest corner market.

I've had a ton of hobbies over the years that I've spent ridiculous amounts of money on and didn't really get anything out of. With brewing I get beer! Perfect.

I love drinking beer and brewing has opened my horizons to a myriad of styles I never knew of or never appreciated out of ignorance. I still drink big IIPAs, but now I brew them to my tastes insted of paying upwards of $15 a sixer for a beer that I don't love.

Plus the science, the toys, the DIY projects, the smiling faces of family and friends who just tasted my latest creation, SWMBO's aggrvation that there's no hefe left and she has to wait 3 weeks for the next batch to be ready, growing hops, pretending I snuck into a giants chemistry lab to conduct evil experiments...

I think it may have been called, 'The Year of the Cloud'... Anyhow the main scientist dude who saves the world had the foresight to stockpile beer being that it was a source of safe liquid and had water in it. This poison cloud thingy ruined all the water in the world, turned it to jello or something... it was a long time ago that I read it but the take home point is that beer can and will save your life...

:fro:

Because I get to actually make something!

I'm a cubicle dweller. I push electrons around on computers for a living and I often wish I was actually making something in the physical world. I get a far greater sense of accomplishment when I sample a homebrew that turned out great than I do finishing some project at work that resulted in nothing tangible.

I like my job, but I LOVE my beer.

I brew to drink. But its more than that its the research of styles, ingredients, techniques, tools and gadgets, the basic and complex science, the peaceful solitude of brew day or late night label scraping, the symphony of multiple carboys airlocks bubbling away, the personal satisfaction of the finished beer, and the personal satisfaction of doing something I enjoy but others find weird.