Pretty good luck with Mr Beer

[Keither]

I just wanted to share some good news about the beer kit my wife bought me for christmas.

I just opened a bottle of "St Patrick's Irish stout" that I brewed about six weeks ago. I used the normal 2 cans of malt but also added a package of that "booster" stuff that came with the fermenter as well as a cup of molasses. I always feel the need to screw around with recipes when I'm cooking, plus I wanted to get rid of the "booster", since I will not be using the two recipes that came with the kit.

Anyway, the beer tastes really good. So far I've made the "nut brown ale", the "czech pilsner", the stout, and I've tried another brown ale with maple syrup. There is a "porter" fermenting right now.

It's all turned out really well, but the stout is an incredible surprise. I found the other beers were very good, and compare favourably with similar store-bought beers, but the stout with the "booster" and molasses in it has really turned out well. It's BETTER than many store-bought stouts. My friends, who think I actually "made" the beer (as opposed to using an extract kit) also think it's really good. It has a creamy taste with lots of malt flavour, a little bitter, and a toasty aftertaste..maybe even a little chocolatey. Also, it's good and boozy. I would be careful drinking more than a glass of it.

Anyway, I am all spun up to try using actual grain to make a beer, but frankly I think I will also be making this stout kit again. There is simply no reason not to.

One thing is weird though, I have been using pop-top bottles, and once in a while I encounter a bottle that is flat. I'm hoping I simply forgot to put sugar in one or two of them, but so far two of the pilsners and one of the stouts has failed to carbonate. The good news is, the stout is so tasty my friends wanted to drink it flat anyway, even when I offered to go get a carbonated one.

I'm really enjoying making beer. Soon I am going to order an all-grain kit, because I love to cook and this seems not different than making soup, really, so why not. Just wanted to say my wife did a really good thing buying the Mr. Beer kit. I was not aware that making your own beer was this rewarding.

 

[stevehardt]

As far as the beer not carbing...how long have you been leaving it in the bottles?

While I stepped up to Midwest extract kits a few batches ago..I had pretty good luck with Mr Beer too. Made 12 MRB batches, some of them very good, but all drinkable. Learned a lot, enjoyed the process, had a good time.

 

[adamjackson]

I went straight to extract and partial mash brewing but Mr. Beer has always intrigued me. For real craft beer lovers who love the beer and take time to rate it on sites like RateBeer, how does Mr. Beer truly stack up against bottle releases from our local breweries?

I just thought surely there's no way it compares so I skipped over it but I would have liked to try it. Glad you had some good luck!

 

[Keither]

The shortest amount of time in bottles was two weeks for the Pilsner, but the stout that was flat was more than six weeks. The thing is, all the rest of the beers from the batch have been perfectly carbonated. It really looks as though the bottles in question didn't get any priming sugar. I only hope I didn't put TWO measures of priming sugar in one of the other bottles!

Adam, I skipped the two beers that came with the kit. They were one can (1.2lb) of malt extract and a package of this type of sugar they call "booster". This apparently makes a very light flavoured beer and isn't the best, but my wife ordered some "deluxe" refills with the kit which consist of all malt and no additional sugar. The first one I tried was a recipe called "Englishmans nut brown ale", which was basically one part light malt and one part dark with hops already added. It produced a beer that resembled something like a "kilkenny" or "smithwicks" in colour and wasn't too far off "kilkenny" in flavour either. I found the flavour was a little lighter than I was hoping for, but it was not different than any number of "brown ales" that various big brewers produce. It might not mean much if you'r not from Canada but the beer was very similar to a sleeman's honey brown or Big Rock "traditional ale". It wasn't better than these beers but not worse either.

I also tried the czech "bohemian pilsner", which was quite good. The hops they have already added to the malt in this one were very exotic-smelling and I was quite excited to try it out. It turned out well too, but I am more of a dark beer fan so I tried the stout next and added some ingredients like the "booster" sugar and molasses. I really like how that turned out.

The recipes that come with the kit say that you can ferment for one week, and carb for one week, and you will have beer. The little book that comes with the kit says however, that using all malt recipes, fermenting for at least two weeks and conditioning in the bottles for several more weeks results in much better beer, which is consistent with what I've read on this website as well. I've followed this advice and the resulting beer is very nice. The stout in particular. Mr Beer recommends aging this one for up to six months but I grew impatient after two.

I really think the negative press the kit has got is a result of people not fermenting and conditioning the beer long enough, and maybe they're not selecting recipes they like. I'm pretty sure I'm going to move quickly to experimenting with grain but there is nothing wrong with the beer from the kit.

Just because I don't know much about brewing doesn't mean I don't know a lot about what beer should taste like. There are many opinions about what "good beer" tastes like (otherwise Coors and Miller and Molson would be out of business) but I have sampled a lot of good beer in my time and I'm enjoying the Mr Beer kit as an introduction to making my own beer.

 

[adamjackson]

Very cool. It would he fun to get one with some deluxe recipes to try. I'm wondering of on this site if there are guys with Mr. beer kits gathering dust now that they have graduated?

 

[BrewByLos]

Just because I don't know much about brewing doesn't mean I don't know a lot about what beer should taste like. There are many opinions about what "good beer" tastes like (otherwise Coors and Miller and Molson would be out of business) but I have sampled a lot of good beer in my time and I'm enjoying the Mr Beer kit as an introduction to making my own beer.

All right! My Mr. Beer oatmeal stout is about 3 weeks old in bottles and tastes great. I'm brewing the Mr. Beer Russian imperial stout recipe tomorrow. One of the base ingredients is the Irish stout HME. I for one fully agree that Mr. Beer is a legit launching point in this obsession.

You made beer... Good beer!

 

[BrewinHooligan]

I too started with Mr Beer and made pretty decent beer with it when I added a pound of DME to the basic kits. After 4 batches, I jumped up to 5 gallon all grain batches. In my opinion, the difference is like buying a fozen pizza, or making one from scratch. You can get a really good frozen pizza, but the pizza that is made from scratch just tastes better. I love that Mr Beer got me started and I still use mine to make small batches of Apfelwein and will use it to make experimental brews like a Jalapeno Pale Ale by making a full batch, and "dry-pepper" half in the Mr Beer.

 

[Randolf]

I was given my 1st Mr.Berr kit back in 96', a little 6 liter fermenter.I tried some batches,and well eh, but I went right ahead and bought 2 Mr. Beer 6.5 gallon fermenters,Yes I said Mr. Beer fermenters.Anyone remember these.They cost all but a hundred bucks each,but I was hooked. I continued to follow their instructions for a 2 week turnaround from kettle to mouth and you all know what happened. I shoved the whole lot in a corner of the garage and gave up brewing.Well, on my 60th B-day, I dragged the small one out,purchased 2 more little kegs and started again,now following the directions I got from reading the internet homebrew blogs. WOW,whatta diff!. Ihave brewed prolly 20 batches since then and even got the big 6.5 gallon ones out and brewed a SummerAle in one,so all in all Mr. Beer was my shove into the abyss we all love ,homebrewing.