Seems like many are returning to home brewing....

[Soulshine2]

I think the fact that a lot of "cheap" electrical systems around 300 dollar/euro's for biab are now available for people with smaller living spaces, gives it a great boost.

Also, 300 sq feet is pretty normal here for single person first place to live(and in helsinki, even 2 people often don't have more than 400 sq feet), US houses always seem huge and quite wasteful in space to us.

300 sq ft...id have to go outside just to change my mind.

 

[mongoose33]

kind of a side topic, theres a small hole in the wall restaurant not far from us my wife and I stopped at for breakfast , the parking lot is always full every time we go by at any time of day. we saw that as really good food right? It was barely average. We could make better at home. Dont see the draw of just average places.

Price? Speed of service? Don't have to cook at home for those who don't like cooking or cleanup? Atmosphere? The company?

All of those might matter, though I would tend to bet toward the last two, atmosphere and company.

That's one thing a taproom might have going for it, even with "Meh" beer, i.e., atmosphere and company. I'm going to a morning coffee group today, bunch of guys get together for coffee at the Country Kitchen. The food there is pretty good, the coffee? Meh. But one doesn't go for the coffee. It's the company.

Interesting you mentioned this, because I don't think I've considered this part of it. The quality of the beer isn't all of it. Given two equal places in atmosphere and the social aspects, you'd expect the place with the better beer to win out. But if otherwise different, maybe the beer isn't the most important thing. (gasp!)

We have two basic beer places in my town (good beer, not the BMC stuff). One is better than the other in terms of the beer; the other has a better social draw, and the beer is good enough. I prefer the place my friends are gathering, despite the fact I can do better with beer at the other.

 

[Soulshine2]

Price? Speed of service? Don't have to cook at home for those who don't like cooking or cleanup? Atmosphere? The company?

All of those might matter, though I would tend to bet toward the last two, atmosphere and company.

That's one thing a taproom might have going for it, even with "Meh" beer, i.e., atmosphere and company. I'm going to a morning coffee group today, bunch of guys get together for coffee at the Country Kitchen. The food there is pretty good, the coffee? Meh. But one doesn't go for the coffee. It's the company.

Interesting you mentioned this, because I don't think I've considered this part of it. The quality of the beer isn't all of it. Given two equal places in atmosphere and the social aspects, you'd expect the place with the better beer to win out. But if otherwise different, maybe the beer isn't the most important thing. (gasp!)

We have two basic beer places in my town (good beer, not the BMC stuff). One is better than the other in terms of the beer; the other has a better social draw, and the beer is good enough. I prefer the place my friends are gathering, despite the fact I can do better with beer at the other.

nope, none of those. We thought it was a bit dirty, quiet and the service was as good as the food. barely average. I would guess the patrons are either lazy or dont know how to cook. Prices werent great either. We're foodies. Service we can look around, prices-comparable to food quality...If its not better than we can make at home , we dont go back.

 

[krebs119]

I have been brewing for around 10 years now. Did the typical extract -> biab -> all grain, kegging, kegerator.... wayyyy too many carboys. Did a bunch of competitions and did well enough (and often poor enough, lol). I took about a year off. I moved houses, my mother died, and I finished my degree (finally!). Stuff got in the way, and brewing was a bit of an afterthought.

I'm back into it, HARD, right now. I've brewed 3 times in the past 5 weeks or so. I have the ingredients for my next 2.5 batches at home, and I'm planning the next 2.5 after that. I'm entered in 2 competitions this month and 2 more next month.

One of the reasons I got into brewing was availability of what I want, WHEN I want it. I LOVE Oktoberfest, but to find it in variety you only get a few months of the year.

I also like the historical and weird stuff that is harder to find. My most recent brew day was a Sahti.

I can (and will be) brew an XMAS beer in July, and likely kick the keg by Labor day. Where can you find that in a store?

When I got into brewing it was at the beginning/middle of the craft beer movement. Going to the store to find aisles of different styles I've never tried was amazing. I'm finding it going backwards now a bit. Wegmans has 3 or 4 mini/half aisles of craft and regular beer. If they sorted it by style, they could now fill half of their aisles with just various IPAs and the typical BMC mass produced stuff. Leaving maybe 1 or 2 aisles of other styles. This is less than it was in 2010 or even 2015.

I miss the days where I could find random new bocks and dunkleweisans and ESBs on shelves. Now they are all replaced by the latest IPA.

 

[oldwhiskers]

I don't think I saw it mentioned in the posts above, but some could be putting a pause on their brewing for health issues. I had to stop for a few years because of this.

 

[Saunassa]

Also, 300 sq feet is pretty normal here for single person first place to live(and in helsinki, even 2 people often don't have more than 400 sq feet), US houses always seem huge and quite wasteful in space to us.

Not a huge house in Minnesota but 400 square feet would not be enough cooped up at -25c to -45c for a few week straight with my wife.
I am looking into an electric biab because as you get older sitting out in the garage @-17c or more and carrying a fermenter in is not fun. I imagine many quit brewing due to this. With the equipment available if I keep using propane I will buy a pump and run a hose to basement and pump directly to fermenter. Added benefit it will help cool the wort.

 

[mongoose33]

Not a huge house in Minnesota but 400 square feet would not be enough cooped up at -25c to -45c for a few week straight with my wife.
I am looking into an electric biab because as you get older sitting out in the garage @-17c or more and carrying a fermenter in is not fun. I imagine many quit brewing due to this. With the equipment available if I keep using propane I will buy a pump and run a hose to basement and pump directly to fermenter. Added benefit it will help cool the wort.

If you're going to a basement, you probably don't need a pump. Gravity baby!

Yeah, things change. I collect RO water in a 7-gallon aquatainer on the floor of my garage. I used to lift it to a table and use the spigot to draw off a gallon at a time to fill my kettle. I finally decided that sooner or later, I was going to have back issues as a result of this (I've had two back surgeries). So I put in a pump that will pull water from the aquatainer and pump it into the kettle. Takes about 3.5 minutes while I'm doing something else, and no back issues.

 

[Kharnynb]

Not a huge house in Minnesota but 400 square feet would not be enough cooped up at -25c to -45c for a few week straight with my wife.
I am looking into an electric biab because as you get older sitting out in the garage @-17c or more and carrying a fermenter in is not fun. I imagine many quit brewing due to this. With the equipment available if I keep using propane I will buy a pump and run a hose to basement and pump directly to fermenter. Added benefit it will help cool the wort.

Well...finland is usually colder than Minnesota, at least most places..

 

[Incubus2112]

....or at least it looks that way to me.

Anyone else notice an increase in the number of "new" members who gave up brewing for any number of reasons, and now are getting back into it?

There has been discussion over the last year or so about the decline in home brewing. Not sure how true that is, but it sure seems to be the case to me. And yet, I've been struck by the number of new posters--or older posters who are back--who gave up brewing for a while and are now coming back to it.

I wonder if advances in home brewing have contributed to this, i.e., things like BIAB, better equipment, better yeast choices, etc.

Thoughts on this?

I can comment to this. I was a new user around 2 or so years ago and fell out of brewing.

A bad transfer when racking my beer fouled my whole batch (because I messed up, have since learned) which totally took all the wind outta my sails.

Had my folks down for a couple weeks and just got it into my head that I was gonna brew again, so I did.

 

[Saunassa]

M

 

[Conehead]

The more expensive beer gets, ( Canada ) the more I brew.

 

[jekeane]

Seems to me the hobby is seeing a reduction on a whole. Our homebrew club meetings were 45-50 people and now are 25-30. There are however a fair amount of new faces.

Everything ebbs and flows we have seen competitions that would always receive 600 entries only get 400 the last 2 years.

I think peoples free time is diminishing on a whole which is another part of the downturn.

 

[bobeer]

Been brewing since Jan 2012 and we've had 2 kids since then, started and closed several businesses- still running one as of today- and moved 4 times. I never quit brewing. Thought about it several times but decided I'd just put down the mash paddle until it was more doable again. I'd manage to squeeze in a 2.5 gallon biab every now and then for a holiday because brewing makes me happy but now, that we're in our forever home, and we're getting the finances from the business straightened out, I have more time to brew. I've gone on brewing breaks but I've always been here to lend a hand to a fellow brewer in need. It's what kept me going when I couldn't brew!

 

[TwoHeadsBrewing]

For me, coming back to homebrewing came from the availability, quality and price of AIO electric brewing systems. I've always wanted to get back into it since selling my setup and doing the occasional split batch with a friend. But the amount of equipment I had with my old system took up a lot of space in the garage and I didn't want to go back to propane. The added benefit of electric is being able to brew inside.

A few months ago I started looking at the AIOs (Grainfather, Robobrew/Brewzilla, Mash & Boil, Anvil Foundry, Clawhammer, etc). I was impressed that you can get a solid 5g setup for under $500, and a really nice setup for around $1k. I got a v3.1 Brewzilla to see if it was for me, and I gotta say I'm hooked! Great little system, and while not perfect by any means, it makes beer and takes up less than 1/3 of the space of my previous setup. And all I need is a 110v outlet...pretty cool!