How & why did you start brewing?

[texasforever]

Howdy all,

I wanted to invite everyone to share a little of their background on why they started home brewing and what got you interested.

To start us off, I think we can all agree that a deep founded love of beer is the catalyst for taking on this endeavor.

I used to work for a major American brewer. Since leaving I've missed the brewery atmosphere, people, smells, and fresh beer... I met my wife while working there so she always knew me as the "beer guy". I studied chemical engineering in college, so any time industrial equipment or process control is involved I get excited...

Fast forward six years, she recently told me that I should get back to doing what I loved (just on a smaller scale). For father's day this year, she bought me a kit of homebrew equipment to start making 5 gallon batches in an "ale pail".

Couldn't be happier to get started and to join the homebrew community.

So, what's your story? How did you get started? What keeps you going?

-TexasForever

 

[outside92129]

The wife was stumped as to what to get me for xmas a while back. That little cooper kit quickly morphed into a beast taking over the garage as well as house modifications, etc.

Since becoming a homebrewer i've come to appreciate the good stuff, prior to joining the club i only drank the lighter stuff (Guinness, New Castle, etc).

 

[DrunkleJon]

Me? Like most of my hobbies, on a whim I decided I wanted to try to make my own beer. I was a self professed beer snob (would not drink anything cheaper than BL in college, at the time I decided this I drank a lot of Guninness and Sam Adams). Bought myself a 5 gal kit from Midwest as a congrats on getting another job (after being unemployed for a full year) present and the rest as they say is history.

 

[firerat]

My wife bought me a MR. Beer kit.

I used it and made an awful beerish like substance.

I wanted to know why it sucked so bad and what I could do to improve what I made.

And 7 years later I'm still improving. My beer now sucks way less than before.

 

[hunter_le five]

I was exactly 21 years old and wanted a new hobby for perfectly legitimate reasons. Who's asking?

 

[unionrdr]

December 2010, my middle son asked why I didn't start making wine again while my wife & I were watching Youtube videos & drinking beer. I said we like beer more nowadays & decide to look up home brewing videos. By early January, we had a Cooper's Microbrew kit. Over the space of the next couple years, it morphed into this;

 

[mrdail87]

My girlfriend and I are both beer enthusiasts and have the same preferences towards beer. We had talked about brewing our own and how awesome it would be. Christmas was coming up, and I she had just bought what I was going to get her.

So I thought, "why not some homebrew stuff"? Luckily I started researching in early November. I knew I could afford a few recipe kits, or a really basic homebrew kit (Mr. Beer). After weighing the options, I really wanted to do 5 gallon batches, and the Mr. Kits seemed a little too simplified for me to have much faith in them. So I bought 3 extract kits from Norther Brewer.

I then began my decent into homebrew nerdiness. There was no way I was gonna get her all this stuff and not know what I'm doing. I probably spend a good month and a half researching for hours a day before we ever brewed anything.

My mom was kind enough to get us a $100 gift certificate to Norther Brewer, to help us afford the equipment needed for 5-gallon batches.

The whole thing went over so well, by the time we successfully made 2 brews from kits, I parted out the 3rd one and made my stout from my own recipe. She was really skeptical at first, but ended up loving the stout so much, she actually had me brew a new batch of it.

 

[phyllobeddo]

It all started with a Mr. Beer kit given to me by my wife. I didn't care much at all for the product produced by Mr. Beer and I had to take it further. Austin Homebrew Supply had cheap shipping and I ordered a decent starter kit with 5 and 6.5 gallon glass carboys plus other goodies. That was probably 10 or 11 years ago, and I'm still loving it!

 

[pricelessbrewing]

To save money! Jokes on me.

 

[LakeErieMonster]

The wife bought me a Mr. Beer kit on sale for $10 since she had seen me become a beer nerd the previous year.
Wanting to learn how to brew, I looked into the wealth of knowledge on the internet.

Long story short, I ordered proper equipment the next day and brewed my first batch the next week. The Mr. Beer kit was never used.

 

[thepickledherring]

I see a lot of similar stories here, and I follow the same path. While not a big drinker, I enjoy the odd drop. But not being a drinker, I can't justify spending too much and would usually buy whatever had the most kick for the least amount of money. Needless to say, I couldn't appreciate the finer points of quality alcohol.

My wife bought me Mangrove Jack starter kit for my birthday, and the rest has been history. The idea of being able to craft a beer to my specific taste, the fact that brewing can as complicated or as simple as you choose, and channeling my inner Walter White are just a few of the reasons that I've fallen hard for this craft.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[thaymond]

I was gifted a Mr. Beer kid for my birthday. Tried it out (pale ale) and it tasted terrible. I had 1 bottle. Dumped the rest and "lost" the kit. Fast Forward. My son was born and was gifted at Christmas an actual brew starter kit with an IPA, porter and stout recipe extract kits. Tried it, liked it, wanted better (because don't we all) and started lurking here. Fast Forward again. Moved to all grain BIAB, dedicated fridges, grow hops, keg system, temp control, and DIY projects all with HBT influence. I have a saison starting in about 36 hours, and I'm in the problem solving process for controlled warm fermentation now. Needless to say, the hobby is a bit consuming, but I also get to consume my hobby.

 

[Jedirabbit]

I kind of thought it would be a good idea to brew my own beer and make alcohol for friends

It all started with a book
Brew it yourself by Nick Moyle & Richard Hood
I am in the UK and their ginger beer recipe was pretty easy to follow, tried a couple of kits after but prefer recipes.
I prefer small batch brewing one or two gallons work well for me.

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

Spite?...Is that really s**ty to say? lol I went to the Masters one year with my brother. We stopped through Asheville, NC where he has a friend that owns a prominent brewery. They rolled the red carpet out for us, gave us the full tour and got our interests piqued. We went back to my brothers house after the tournament and he immediately went and bought enough gear to brew a sour. I 'helped' (did the large majority of the work and did all the thinking to overcome the obstacles of a new brewer without the knowledge or equipment needed) brew. He refused to send me a bottle, complained about off flavors (bandaid) and asked what he needs to do to get better.

I read "How to Brew" to be able to give him better ideas on how to improve his brewing techniques. But, I realized it sounds like fun to me AND I wanted to send my brother better beer than he could brew to ask him what he thought of it I'm 1 of 5 and very competitive.

 

[Nokie]

I started with a mr beer kit about 10 years ago.Thought I’d save money.

 

[bracconiere]

i know this is a revived thread, but, i've always hated getting picked on by drug dealers. alcohol is an easy one to win!

 

[Realalcholic420]

I started brewing when I was 14 I was getting homless people to buy me liquor and sometimes they would just steal my money. So I looked up the basics of brewing and fremented some apple wine. I did it with bakers yeast and didn't use a airlock so it tasted pretty bad. But when I was 16 I made rum from a pressure cooker drilled to fit copper tubing it kinda tasted like rubbing alcohol though so I didn't do it often plus blackstrap molasses is experience. I brewed wine more recently when I was 18 my weed dealer worked at a gas station so I got to buy 4lokos. I always been more into weed than alcohol but since I turned 21 I been drinking a lot more and its gotten expensive to buy Jim Beam all the time and I get foodstamps so brewing is basically free.

 

[wsmith1625]

I thought about brewing beer for many years before I actually got started. It started with a friend who told me his Dad makes beer at a local place called The Brewer's Apprentice. A home brew shop that offered brew on premises. I did 2 batches there, but it was very expensive and I really didn't learn the process. I still thought it was cool as heck though.

Then a few years later another friend of mine started making beer at home using a Mr. Beer kit. That's when I realized that you can actually make beer at home and I took an interest. I started looking on the Internets and decided a few things. One, I definitely don't want a Mr. Beer kit. Two, I don't want to brew extract beers. Three, I wanted to do all grain and needed to buy a ton of equipment that I couldn't afford. My dream of home brewing was basically on permanent hold.

Now a few years later, a brewery opened up about a mile from my house. I was really stoked and couldn't wait for them to open. I finally stopped in one day because I saw some cars gathered and thought they were open. Well they weren't open, but I met the brew master and we started talking. As he was giving me a tour of his brew house, I told him my story and that I was holding out for an all grain setup. He told me he started making beer using malt extract, and that he made some really good beers with it. I was now ready to give extract brewing a try.

Back on the internets I go and did some more research. Figured out that I wanted to do full volume boils and bought a kit with a 10 gal. kettle from William's Brewing. The kit came with a summer ale which turned out quite good for my first batch. Fast forward to present, I'm now doing all grain BIAB using the original 10 gal kettle I got with my first kit.

 

[Snuffy]

Fast forward six years, she recently told me that I should get back to doing what I loved (just on a smaller scale). For father's day this year, she bought me a kit of homebrew equipment to start making 5 gallon batches in an "ale pail".
-TexasForever

THAT is a good woman right there. Mine tolerates it but gripes about the smell. I guess it is kinda stinky - but GOOD stinky.

I got into brewing because I was exposed to it by my dad who always had some kind of wine going somewhere - usually muscadine or apple. Occasionally he brewed "homebrew" which was pretty terrible IMO.
Flat, malty, no hops. In the early 80s I spent a year and a half in Saudi Arabia where everybody brewed because you had to if you wanted to drink alcohol. Started back in earnest about 5 years ago after my dad passed away and I ended up with all his brew gear - ie LOTS of bottles and buckets. Added an electric unit to go all-grain, a couple of short kegs and a CO2 tank and been brewing every couple of months or so since then.

*I gotta get better about checking the date on these threads. 2014. Geez...

 

[rlmiller10]

All started with buying a place on 2.5 acres. that gave me room to plant fruit trees. Was not getting good pollination on said fruit trees so I got a hive of bees. First year with bees I harvested 55 lb of honey. I can't eat 55 lb of honey so decided I needed to try making mead. Bought a couple of carboys and made some mead that fall/early winter. Since I had carboys and was not going to get more honey until next fall decided I might as well try my hand at beer. Bought a 8 gal kettle and the die was caste for the hobby

 

[_BullDog_]

Wife told me to get a hobby.... I started brewing 1 gal batches .... continue to improve and get new equipment. Currently brew on the unibrau and making great beer

 

[bleme]

I was over at a friend's house and Moonshiners came on. We started joking about how we should start our own business and get rich, then after we went to prison, our wives would take over. Eventually the joke ran it's course and I mentioned that making your own beer is perfectly legal. We wouldn't get rich, but we'd have a steady supply of good beer...

I had just recently reignited an interest in 'craft' beer (Newcastle, Moose Drool, Sam Adams, etc), after many years of not drinking at all, and was interested in expanding my horizons. I had Googled beer styles and saw that there were a ton that I couldn't get locally at all, like Cream Ale and Saison, and the only way to try them was to brew them myself. So my friend and I went in together, splitting costs and bottles 50-50. He (or his wife) eventually decided that he didn't like who he was when he drank so I inherited his half.

Since then, craft beer has really expanded and I can get just about anything I want at the store so now part of my fun is comparing my beer to stuff I can buy. I also really enjoyed the social aspect of brewing with a friend, so I do that as often as I can. I just had to make more friends...

 

[macbrak]

I'm another Mr. Beer user. I bought to make with my brother. I did that for a while until I realized there was a local HBS that I could go to and make better beer cheaper.

 

[Brownyard]

My first round of brewing, '95-'97, was inspired one night while recording an album. The owner of the studio turned me on to Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, then gave me a homebrew.

 

[theothermillion]

My interest was peaked after having some of the best Belgium Quads of my life from a family friend who home brews. I helped him brew a couple batches a few years back and knew I wanted to get into it but didn't have the space to do it as I was renting a room from a friend. Bought my own place last year but was spending all my money on the house. Finally dived in this year using half of the stimulus check to get some nice gear for all-grain and I'm now hooked!

 

[_BullDog_]

Thanks for your help stimulating the economy!

 

[The_BrewLab]

I tried to do couple of things aside of my daily job (creating a watch brand, create a logistic company for small goods, ...) but nothing was very appealing or was possible to be achieved with my own hands.
I then visited a few breweries and started to brew myself after that. I then realised how "easy" and "hard" it was to brew good beers

 

[kmarkstevens]

I first helped a enology (all things wine, from growing the vines to fermentation) major at the University of California, Davis, make a stout in 1980. Wierd thing is that homebrewing was NOT at all a thing at Davis until the late 1980's. I know Davis has a reputation of being the beer brewing mecca, but it simply was not true in the early 1980's. How I kick myself now for not having gotten deep into it in 1980. But as a poor student, homebrewing was pretty expensive for start up costs, the nearest homebrew supply store (wine and the people in Berkeley) was a 2 hour drive away. That said, I liked beer and wasted more money on getting older classmates to buy for me until I was legal.

I did a couple batches in grad school. Moved to japan with an early, pre-index edition of Joy of Homebrewing. I remember flipping thru that book dozens and dozens of times to find a partially remembered detail. I brewed maybe a half a dozen times/year in Japan, where homebrewing was illegal and malt had potato starch in it (and I learned the enzymes in koji would covert the potato starch). Kept homebrewing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and most of my provisions were bought on vacation trips (dry yeast, hop plugs, etc).

When I moved back to the US and into my current house. I had room, wanted to reduce my alcohol intake, and discovered the world of session beers. Mainly English but also Czech and other styles. Shut Up About Barclay Perkins opened a whole world of 2-4% ABV beers that broke all the style guidelines, and I discovered this place. And also discovered BIAB with Basic Brewing Radio, and switched from partial grain to 95% all grain brewing. I still say that there is definately a time and place for a quick partial grain, and I go thru a 50# bag of LME about once/year. The first couple of decades of brewing, I did maybe 10 batches per year. The last decade I've been doing about 1 batch/week.

 

[NSMikeD]

micro/real beer was just starting to show up in the US but still hard to find making home brew a necessity for enjoying good beer. My neighbor and coworker was a home brewer and got me into extract with specialty grains. Kids were born and good beer (or should I say “malt liquor” which is what most good beer is technically under US Federal ABV laws) was popping up on store shelves and bar taps.
Fast forward a few decades, kids are adults shutting down Dad’s Taxi Service and I stumbled upon small batch. BIAB on YouTube. That seemed like a short leap if faith as opposed to the intimidating classic all grain processes from years earlier. A bit more research, some time on the BIAB web site and I returned on my local home brew shop which was still there after all these years.

 

[Electric Brewer]

I'm on a quest for a great wheat beer. Commercial stuff is either too pilsnery or too fruity for my taste.

Craft white beers are made by people that think a blueberry white beer, in a freaking psychedelicly colored can (!), will make them rich.


So here I am, fondling with stuck mash recirculation and kettle cakes.

Quick question. Why are all the thousand craft breweries around me are trying to catch the new fashionable beer trend? Why can't I get access to a classic beer, done properly? Please give me a good lager, slowly taken care of. Please make a real kolsch. No water added after fermentation.

 

[JJinTX]

I was bought a “Mr.Beer” kit for Christmas. It was really neat. I was a Chemical plant operator (still am, but run power generation and gas compression facility now) and I found a hobby that could incorporate a little “process”. So, I started buying some equipment. I brew/cook in my garage and do the rest in the cabin beside my garage. I’m blessed to have the room to be able to spread things out a bit. Anyway, it’s extremely enjoyable for me.
JJ

 

[rlmiller10]

I was bought a “Mr.Beer” kit for Christmas. It was really neat. I was a Chemical plant operator (still am, but run power generation and gas compression facility now) and I found a hobby that could incorporate a little “process”. So, I started buying some equipment. I brew/cook in my garage and do the rest in the cabin beside my garage. I’m blessed to have the room to be able to spread things out a bit. Anyway, it’s extremely enjoyable for me.
JJ

Brewing is the perfect engineers hobby. Lets you design stuff, make stuff, pay attention to detail and enjoy the final result.

I see the Lake Jackson location, you must work at either one of the refineries or the nuke plant down there? In that area you will also get to design a fermentation temp control system. I worked at the nuke facility for a bit and it was nasty hot.

 

[JJinTX]

Brewing is the perfect engineers hobby. Lets you design stuff, make stuff, pay attention to detail and enjoy the final result.

I see the Lake Jackson location, you must work at either one of the refineries or the nuke plant down there? In that area you will also get to design a fermentation temp control system. I worked at the nuke facility for a bit and it was nasty hot.

Afternoon,
I actually work for a Gas plant down here as a control operator in the Utilities section (power generation, gas compression, heating, electrical, air, water..... you know the drill) on the coast. I’ll agree, the humidity is brutal at times for sure. And the temperature can swing wildly during late fall, winter, and early spring. July and august are the worst. But, I’d for sure prefer this over a dry region. That said, I whole heartedly agree it’s a perfect hobby for engineers and process people. You get to use some physics, chemistry, thermal dynamics, etc.

 

[robames1]

My wife got me a Mr Beer kit for Christmas. Then I just expanded from there. Got out of it for about 6 years and back at it again. Making a Golden Ale for my Father in Laws 90th birthday!

 

[karamonde]

I started brewing because I like any sort of homemade stuff. In the past when I had more time and space I made cheese, yoghurt, jams, pickles, cured bacon, dried meat, smoked meat and soap. Some of the soaps in particular were so good that friends I gifted them to asked "where did I buy it".

I started brewing mead because I liked the idea, and after having one glance at a beer recipe I thought "yeah, no, this is too complicated for me". After 30 odd fermentations I had exactly 2 bad ones: my very first one where I put much less honey than needed and ended up with a weak, watery, super dry...honey wine? and one bochet where I took it too far cooking and had an awful bitter burnt taste that wouldn't ever go away. I've also distilled a bochet and ended up with a spirit so good that again friends asked me where they could buy it.

 

[YaleH]

At the beginning of the pandemic and alcohol of any type was scarce, I figured I would try making my own!!! Well after doing research I found out that it's a Felony to even own the equipment related to distilling here in FL let alone make any. So seeing that I didn't want to go to jail, I saw that I could make beer and stay legal..... So I bought a brew kit and the rest is history!!!!

 

[Sky Pilot]

Howdy all,

I wanted to invite everyone to share a little of their background on why they started home brewing and what got you interested.

So, what's your story? How did you get started? What keeps you going?

-TexasForever

Howdy

I bought a starter kit from More Beer and, with it, an all-grain kit. I decided that I wanted to try a DME first, so I bought one and an LME. I have now made the DME and have just bottled the LME, and the All-grain is in the fermenter. The DME "Kents Hollow Leg Wheat" is good. And now I want to start crushing my grain, so I have been looking at mills for a few weeks.

I built a mash tun from a cooler I had and some CPVC 1/2" pipe, and a wort chiller from some old 3/8" copper tube I had in the garage. I bought a ten-gallon Tamale pot for $20.

I just used the mash tun I made last week and got 1.060 OG. I don't know what I am doing, but a wise man once said,
"In the worst-case scenario, you will have beer. In the best case, you will have great beer."

Anyway I am having fun.

 

[bracconiere]

Anyway I am having fun.

 

[Ramalheiro]

Like a lot of people my love for beer is what brought me to homebrew, but also I really like brew my own stuff. Been doing vinegars, wine, liquors and the like for some time and have been looking to beer for quite some time but living in the middle of the Atlantic doesn't help in that regard. There is no place here to buy the stuff needed for homebrew beer and given that it's all heavy stuff the transport fee were outrageous.

But that recently changed when a local super market started selling coopers cans, equipment kits and the like. My wife decided to gift me one of those kits and here I am. Would like to jump to BIAB one day but like mentioned before the logistic of getting the material here will be prohibitive, so let's see where this new venture will take me.

 

[GravesYardHB]

Like the majority of people out there (although not necessarily in here), I started out drinking nothing but Bud Light and Miller Light. College life, ya know. Anything beyond light lagers and that was straight up motor oil.
Fast forward a few years, and I still had the same “taste” in beer. It was then that one of my former college roommates came back home from Iraq and crashed on my couch for a few days. Of course we went out drinking and everywhere we went his drinks were on the house and apparently so we’re mine. He was drinking Black and Tans, which meant so was I. That first one caught me by surprise. It was alright. So I had another. Even better. Maybe there was life outside of what I had been calling beer for so long.
Fast forward a bit more and I had moved to a new town and had a new job. This was the fall of 2004, and the town I moved to had a brewery. When a new colleague found out I enjoyed trying new beers, he met me at the brewery for a tour on a Saturday morning. We toured and sampled and had a good time. The following weekend he called me up and asked what I was doing that afternoon. When I said I didn’t have any plans, he invited me(more like told me I was coming) over to brew beer. And so it began. We brewed an extract Irish stout on an old stove in his basement. We bottled it 2 weeks later and were enjoying it a few weeks after that. It wasn’t great, but it was good enough to make me want to try again. And again. And to try new styles and techniques. And to read and learn how to do it better.
Which brings me to today, closing in 18 years later. I’ve moved many times since then and my brewery has gotten bigger with more equipment. My beer has gotten a lot better. Had gotten, I should say. When the pandemic shut everything down, it shut down my brewing as well. Not physically, I was still able to get materials. It was a mental and emotional shutdown. But I’m beyond that now and am getting it fired back up. I came here for a bit of inspiration and tips to help jog my memory as I pick the mash paddle back up again.
Anyways, it is great to be here! Prost!