First Brew ingredients

[sww35]

Choosing to brew my first time and I want to go with either of these two beer styles:

Northern English Brown Ale
or Southern English Brown Ale

I personally like sweetness and less hop bitterness in the flavors of my beer. Looking for suggestions from some vets who have made several batches of either of these who where they have purchased their ingredients?

Thanks in advance.

 

[hercher]

For your first batch, I would strongly recommend you visit your local homebrew shop, if you have one. You will want to be sure it is a homebrew shop, though, and not a hobby shop that sells a few homebrew kits. The reason for this is you want fresh ingredients, and you want to be able to draw upon the expertise of the LHBS owner.

If you don't have one, there are numerous online suppliers -- Midwest Supplies, Brewmasterster Warehouse, Williams Brewing Co., etc. -- that have a good selection.

 

[TopherM]

One caveat to Hercher's recommendation. I know that my LHBS, and I'd venture to say the MAJORITY of homebrew shops are hybrid wine/homebrew or even hydroponic/homebrew shops, and in many cases these hybrid shops really specialize in Wine/Hydroponics, and not beer.

I know that my homebrew shop gave me HORRIBLE advice when I was a newbie, and continues to give other people bad advise when I'm in there buying grains. It's not really their fault, they are winemakers who only have a basic and ancedotal knowledge of homebrew. Most of them will still give you some of the outdated advice from the post-Jimmy Carter homebrewing books. I feel like a d&&k everytime I correct them when they are giving a newbie crappy advice, but they are just full of misinformation that really probably hurts their repeat business.

So I would urge you to be wary of the advise of the LHBS. You might have a great one in your area, but I think most would agree that chances are they are just a good place to buy stuff, NOT to get advice.

READ READ READ the stickies on this site and a homebrew book or two and you'll learn infinitely more about modern brewing. Then get an extract kit from Austin Homebrew, Northern Brewer, or Midwest Brew Supply and follow the instructions exactly. Once you have your first brew under your belt, you'll know the next step of topics you need to read up on or questions you need to ask here on the site to keep moving you up to the next levels and progressively making better and better beer.

Good luck!!