love to brew but dont drink much.

hey guys I have a problem I love to brew, but I don't drink much. sooo I have a bunch of home brew sitting in my cellar. I do give some away, however I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to how I can brew more. without selling it, and without it piling up on me.

Two ideas:

More, smaller batches

A BBQ

I am going to have a bbq next month. i also was thinking of brewing for my friends. i buy the ingredients and brew and they pay me back. do you think that would be against the law?

I'm the same way...the brewing dial is set on 7 but the drinking dial is on 2.

I just give a lot of beer away.

I'll come pick up the beer. I'm not too far away.

if you buy the ingredients and have someone pay you back, that might be getting into some funny business with the laws. but i dont see where there would be a problem if they bought the ingredients and you made the beer for them.

I'm sorry to hear that. I am also sorry I don't live closer.

Barter.

I have one buddy who makes cheese, another who kills things and makes sausage, another who catches way too many fishes. Trying to find a gardener or a maid who likes beer...

Send me your extra beer. I will dispose of it in a responsible manner.

Have you considered drinking more?

Captain Damage said:

Send me your extra beer. I will dispose of it in a responsible manner.

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Extra beer?? You mean.... ESB right? Surely, you don't mean surplus.... I don't think I even know what that word means!

OP, I feel you on this one. I don't drink a lot either, and I don't even brew as much as some people on here!

I'll be right over

Ill take some.

Wow. I thought i was the only one with this issue. I drink 3-4 during normal weeks and every other weekend I might drink 6-10. I buy all my ingredients in bulk so every 2 months free beer party(donations welcome) at my house, but I am thinking That I will move over to smaller batches soon.

I am in the same boat. I have a beer, maybe two a night. And almost none of my friends drink beer. Guess I need new friends.

GRHunter said:

I am in the same boat. I have a beer, maybe two a night. And almost none of my friends drink beer. Guess I need new friends.

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Maybe you can teach them. I brew such a large variety that I usually have one they like. Even made a Pomegranate Wheat for the SWMBO and she actually likes it. ( good, considering she never drinks beer)

Cutting back to 3.5 gallon batches really helped me.

I am the same way. I only do 2.5 gallon batches for that reason. It allows me to brew more often, have more styles on hand, and take up half the space.

might be a good opportunity to experiment with types that need to age longer. barrel aged, barleywines etc.

Poor college students like me could always use some extra beer....even better if it comes in 30 racks (and isn't a Schmidt Animal Pack).

I'm in the same boat. I drink about twice a week and I have a ton of beer around. I give alot of it away though, I mean ALOT.

My advice: make some new friends via beer.

I was in the same boat. I bought smaller (10 gallon) kettles and started making 5 gallon batches. Kettles were much easier to clean and handle and I get to brew more. I like my pipeline long enough that my beer is 3 months old from date of brew to date on the tap if possible.

I ran into a little snag when I switched over though. I did it at the same time I started to build a new brew stand. Sold my old rig earlier than I thought and now I am actually behind the 8 ball so to speak. Plus, I'll be gone all next week so I can't brew for at least 10 more days! Going to be wide open once I get back on it!

I have the same problem, but the opposite. Need to move up to 10 gallon batches. But 15 gallons would fit nicely in a demijohn... heck, maybe I should just scout out an affordable 3bbl system

brew as much as you want and send the extras to me.........

Wow, it must suck to be your friend! But seriously, wow, it must suck to be your friend!!! LOL

Brew in smaller batches and brew things that age well. I make a lot of mead and pretty soon I am going to run out of storage space because my friends and I can't drink it nearly as fast as I can make it. But luckily mead ages well. I am sure we will unearth some gems in the future.

Just think of it as stocking up for future shortages!!

stillstoked said:

hey guys I have a problem I love to brew, but I don't drink much. sooo I have a bunch of home brew sitting in my cellar. I do give some away, however I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to how I can brew more. without selling it, and without it piling up on me.

Click to expand...

well,i'm not to far from you...I'd be willing to help you dispose of some of your Liquid Gold...

I'm in a similar situation (drinking-wise). Luckily, we have a bunch of younger friends who love to come to our parties and that will clear our a batch or two in a weekend easily. Depending upon what I have ready, I've found that I to be judicious with my guestlist to keep from having too many people show up. At least the weather finally warmed up so the parties tend to stay in the garage (pool table) and backyard (horseshoes, bocce, fire pit, cricket, etc., etc.).

I ask the guests to bring meat/veggies for the BBQ and I spend very, very little on the party.

I'm in the same situation. Luckily competitions, friends, home brew meetings, etc. are good ways of both knocking back the inventory as well as getting other people's opinions of my beer.

Same here... I drink about a 12-oz beer a night, sometimes two, and brew a 5-gallon batch about once a month. The math is already not in my favor (50 bottles/batch gives me about 7 weeks of drinking), but I have to force myself to keep at the once/month level. Fortunately my wife does all the finances so that helps motivate me

My friends don't mess around...I invite a couple over for a weekend fire and a 5gal corny doesn't have a chance...most are just weekend worriers so nobody cares about the calories...just beer, fire, and meat on the grill...

I'll take any excess you have.

One idea would be to try to trade some homebrew for some more expensive or hard to find commercial beers. It could take some work but maybe you could just offer a 4 or six pack of selectable homebrew types for each beer from a 'top 50' list or something. There are plenty of commercial beers I'd like to try if I had more money, I love having selection but it takes more convincing to buy at the $4/12oz level and above.

Now that's a good idea. I drink at Taco mac down here and they have a 300+ beer selections plus 50 or so on tap. I always at a loss as to what to try. This is an awesome idea!:rockin:

I brew 5 gallon batches. Usually, it's just me drinking my beer, and I can barely keep the supply up with the demand! My wife doesn't like beer. I have friends that help sometimes too. Unfortunately, I was putting on weight and that's not cool since I'm in the Air Force. I've had to cut my beer drinking way back and it's starting to pile up. I'll just have to make beer less often now.

I'm really happy to see this thread. After a bout with the Gout, I find I need to cut back on drinking beer, and I need to change the diet a little. So, I have begun to brew 2.5 gallon batches. I just bought a 3g Better Bottle (my first) and so far I really like it. We will see how easy it is to clean after I bottle next week.

I had been thinking about going bigger, and I was researching and trying to figure out what I would need and the cost and all, and then this happened. It actually solved my space problem. Instead of going bigger, I am going smaller.

The past two batches have been "No-Sparge" which is nice, because I was messing up sparging anyway. I am still new with only 17 batches brewed, about 8 of them all-grain and a couple of partial-mashes. By not sparging, brewing becomes simpler. I don't need an HLT any more. I just heat my water in my BK and pour it into the MLT, then drain back into the BK. Also, the time it takes to brew is shorter. I'm shooting for 3.5 hours, but I haven't hit it yet.

I don't need to buy a bigger brew pot. My 20qt pot is fine. I do want to put a port on it and maybe start using a plate chiller or a CFC. I would like to shorten that cooling time. I just can't seem to get it cool very quickly with my IC. 10 minutes would be nice!

Overall, small batches would allow me time to brew more often (even after work) and not have a lot of beer to store. No-sparge is much less efficient, but the batch size is so small that efficiency isn't so important to me. The ingredients cost very little for each batch. Smaller equipment is easier to store. I can even brew in the kitchen when it gets cold out.

Sharing my beer can be a problem, but maybe I'll just be more selfish.

Now, I need to figure out how to adjust these recipes.

I feel your pain. I love brewing, but average for me is about a 500mL beer a night. This equates to a batch every few months. I really want to brew more so I can experiment! I guess it'll be more 1gal batches for me. I'll definitely pick up some more 1gal carboys.