How do you guys do it?!?

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surista

surista

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So I'm reading these boards - the true oracle of all beer wisdom, verily - and some of the signatures blow me away. Three brews in primary, two in secondary, a couple in kegs, three brews bottled...

It's not the brewing part it's the consumption part. How in the world do you go through so much beer!? I'm still working my way through my first batch made in late May...Granted I just moved to London so don't have many friends over to help me get rid of beer (so I have an excuse to make more), but still...
 
Three pints a day for me, one for the wife. That's a half gallon a day, or a keg every ten. That's three batches a month just to hold serve. Sounds about right.
 
Well, for one, I definitely drink too much! I don't drink to the point of drunkeness, or even buzzed, but I LOVE beer. Beer is like my "junk food". I don't eat chips, doughnuts, junk food, snacks, etc. In the evening, I'll have a couple of pints of beer while I surf the net or listen to music or read.

The other thing- I have a kegerator so there is room for about 5 kegs of beer. So, I can have a 1/2 glass of this now, and 3/4 of a glass of that later. So, I usually have several different choices around. I like that- so even when I bottled all of my beers, I'd have three to six different beers bottled so I could have a variety.

I brew about 3 times per month, and that's about right for me.
 
My first kit came with plastic 750ml bottles. I quickly realized I wasn't a fan of having so much of the same beer at a time - so my latest batch (yesterday) is going to be going in some awesomely sexy glass swing-top bottles. These things look fantastic. Size is about 500ml, or about a pint, which is about the max I want of one beer at a go.

My wife is expecting in January so she's not able to help out much on the consumption part of things, slacker.
 
I drink pretty much everything I brew all by myself........It's a buggar sometimes just trying to keep up, but I manage somehow. ;)
 
I only bottle (pints). When all my bottles are filled, I slow down. When my stash flag is at half mast, I'm back to brewing.

I do give away a lot of beer. It is part of my credo and allows me to brew more often, which is my passion and must be exercised (or exorcised, per my wife).

And I drink too much (again, per my wife).
 
The guy I started brewing with drank 80% of the beer and he was 20 lbs lighter. Takes me months to go through a keg by myself.
 
Have friends over who like to drink beer, and better yet, free beer. You'll never have too much beer around and will NEED to keep a pipeline together just to stock beer.
 
I usually share my brews with friends and co-workers - my boss likes beer, so he is a prime guinea pig for every new batch (plus it keeps him happy ;) )

Aside from that, I don't drink as often as some of the other people around here - maybe 2-3 beers during the week, more than that on weekends with friends coming over and what not..
 
The thing about those sigs, is that the beers are not all rerady and being consumed at the same time. They are usually at different stages of fermenting and conditioning. I or "we" maty only have one or two, or for keggers more, beers available for consumption, with everything else doing it's thing until we are out.

It's called having a pipeline. This is a discussion I had with someone last fall.

captianoats said:
How did you manage to keep a delicious chilled beer for 3 months? I'm lucky to keep a six pack cold for 3 weeks without downing them all.
Click to expand...

Revvy said:
It's called having a pipeline, beers at different levels of readiness. With a pipleine and a full fridge with many choices it is easy to not have a taste for a certain beer for a while, or just not grab it from the back..this was something I wrote a few months ago, it sums up my pipeline at the time....


I leave 99% of my beers in primary for a month...then I bottle...and right now I can't get 70 degrees in my loft to save my life...so I don't expect ANY of my beers to be carbed on time....so in the interim, I buy mix sixers of various beers to try as research for the next beers I plan on brewing and to build up my bottle stock.

For Example, I brewed my Pumpkin Ale for Thanksgiving on Labor Day...figuring at 8 weeks, I MIGHT have some ready for Holloween...But they were still green, so I only brought a couple to my annuual Halloween thingy, along with a sampler of commercial pumpkins...BUT come Turkey Day the beer was fantastic, and was a hit at the holiday.

Right now this is my current inventory...

Drinking....IPA, various bottles of Oaked Smoked Brown Ale, Smoked brown ale, Poor Richard's Ale, Biermuncher's Centennial Blonde (but as a Lager,)
Avoiding....Marris Otter/Argentinian Cascade SMaSH (It sucks)
Bottle Conditioning..... Chocolate Mole Porter, Belgian Dark Strong Ale, Peach Mead
In Primary.....Schwartzbier, Vienna Lager
Bulk Aging....Mead
Lagering....Dead Guy Clone Lager

Pretty much anything still in Primary or Lagering I will not be drinking til the end of March, but more than likely April....The Mole Porter needs a minimum several more weeks as well....but the Belgian Strong is prolly going to need 3-6 months to be ready...

The Swartzbier has 3 weeks more in primary, then another month lagering, THEN 3 weeks at least in the bottles...

Some weeks I take a break from my own beers to drink a couple sixers of samplers, so I don't drink ALL my current and other ready beers before the others comes online....Plus I'm craving a couple of styles that I don't have ready (like Vienna Lager) so I will make a bottle run....I also get to try new styles to come up with new ones to brew down the line.

And I'm also probably going to brew something this weekend...don't know what yet...maybe a low abv mild that I would only leave in primary till fermentation is stopped then bottled..so hopefully in a month they will drinkable.....

But do you see...you too one day will have a pipleine....and the wait will be nothing...you will have things at various stages...

This quote from one of my friends sums it up....

dontman said:
The nice thing is to get to a point in your pipeline where you are glancing through your BeerSmith brew log and realize that you have a beer that you have not even tried yet and it has been in bottle over 6 weeks. This happened to me this weekend. The beer was farging delicious.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Right now for me, I am at the bottom of the pipeline spectrum...I have not been able to brew much this summer, and October doesn't look to promising either, in fact it looks like I won't be able to brew til "Teach you neighbor to homebrew day" in early November. So I am buying more beer than I am drinking of my own. I have very few bottles of my own beers.

I have a couple champagne bottles of my saison, a few bottles of my wit, and a few bottles of one of my failed attempts at perfecting my ginger orange dortmunder, that's really not too enjoyable to drink.

So I'm pretty much hosed.
 
Football season! W/ a few buddies over we'll polish off a keg in a single game day. I've got a 5 keg kegerator so thats no problem. Actually what I do is brew in advance and leave beer in the secondary until a keg is empty no downtime that way :D. If my kegs get full I can always bottle some and put it back for later.
 
Short answer - I don't drink it all. I brew way more than I can ever drink. I've brewed 190 gallons so far this year and probably half of it is still sitting around in kegs or bottles.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly drink my fair share of beer... but I also have poker parties once a month, host homebrew club meetings, send beers to competitions, etc. I also have 15 gallons sitting around that still have at last another year of aging to do.

I brewed 4 batches just to get 2 bottles of each to send to the HBT competition. The fact that I end up with all of the rest to drink at some point is just icing on the cake.
 
It's easy to have a lot on tap if you don't drink it, too :)

That's how I'd be if I hadn't been on a brewing hiatus since late friggin' June. As it is, all of the 'free time is spent cleaning the house' work has led me to be down to half a keg of hefe. Alas.
 
I'm at the most I've had at one time right now and have 2 kegs tapped, one more in the keezer (Keezer only hold 3 kegs) and I have another batch ready to go into a keg when my lazy butt puts it in there. I had 3 fermenters sitting beside each other about a month ago and it was great. Now I have one and soon to be none. It's comforting to have at least one batch in standy by. I would love to keep two tapped, two ready to serve (when the two blow) and 10 more G fermenting at all times. I hope to keep this up. Hoping to do a 10G batch of something sessionable soon.
When I first started kegging, I 5G keg would last me and my wife about a week or 2. Now that the novelty has worn off (and she's back to school teaching) they last 3-4 weeks. So it's easier to keep a pipeline.
 
In my household, everybody pitches in a little, drinking one or two beers per day, averaging out to 5 beers consumed in the aggregate per day. That's 140 beers per month, or 1,680 fl oz. My average batch consists of 620 fl oz, so I have to brew 2.7 times per month just to keep from running out of beer. If I want to build up a pipeline, that number should be more like 3.5.
 
I haven't perfected my brew to drink ratio yet. I only have 2 or 3 bottles in the fridge and at least a week before the first of 2 batches is ready. Must brew more or drink less.

I vote for brew more.
 
I brewed my first batch about 2 months ago, and made the fatal error of waiting until it was done to start another batch. Now I bottled a batch on Sunday, AND brewed another batch. I'm trying to build up my pipeline, so that I always have some Homebew around. I've found that it really is WAY better than anything I've bought at the store.
 
Friends coming over and parties. For our biggest two parties, we'll go through 4 kegs at each, and then some. I probably only drink half or less of what I brew.
 
I generally have 2 fermenters going at once, sometimes 3. One of them is usually apfelwein, which is a 3 month ferment. I probably drink 2 bombers a day, so 60 per month or 2 batches. BUT over time the apfelwein figures into that, so I need to brew once every three weeks to keep stock.
 
Well, I do drink most of my brew by myself, but I also travel with a keg and bottles to share with other members (who show up)...;)

I have 2 kegs on tap, 8 in the keezer, about 7 more kegged just sitting there aging, presently have 5 in primaries/carboys, but they are all in different stages of aging.
 
Me and the girlfriend drink a lot on the weekends.
 
I actually still need to work on the pipeline a bit. Most of my beers are pretty young when they go on tap. I have plenty of selection to drink but just need more patience for most of the beers. I have a pale on tap that is about ready to bust and it is only 2 months old right now. I did bottle 3 gallons of it too though out of a 8 gallon batch.
 
I brew every 2-3 weeks, and drink probably 90% of the beer I brew myself. I average about 2-3 pints a night. Somehow, it just works out. ;)
 
I'm starting the pipeline before my first batch is even out of the fermentor. Right now I have two in primary and I just ordered 4 more kits today, 3 of which I am planning on brewing this weekend.
 
I was wondering this too, but I assumed it was under a sort of 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy. Or perhaps a, 'thats between me and swmbo' type thing.

The pipeline thing makes sense. As does having friends...
 
Right now I have 20 gallons in various stages of fermentation and 10 gallons in the keezer at 36° to cold crash. I have 2 kegs in the kegerator that are being served and one thats just aging . Now my oldest son is 27 lives on his own about 20 minutes away but I send him off with a couple of growlers from time to time . Both me and the wife will have a pint or two just about every night.

And then there are the neighbors who indulge when I let them. :D . 5 gallons of the Octoberfast and 5 of the mild brown are for our Octoberfest block party not a big block. So its not like I am sitting around drinking pints all day.
 
I'm just now just starting to get my pipeline going, I have 10g of house ale and 10g of wine. That's not near enough to keep me from buying beer. I can knock a keg in a week or so. I love my beer and I'd love to drink noting but my homebrew but as of yet i have not been able to fill my pipeline enough to kep me sustained. Now that I've stepped up to 10g batches, I'm hoping the pipeline will be sustainable soon
 
I usually give at least two litters of every batch of home brew to my father-in-law. I also give at least a six pack of every batch to friends or neighbors. My wife says that I drink too much as well, even though I don't drink to get drunk.
 
I hardly ever drink. I make mead. Mead is like wine. It gets better as it ages. I only have about 10 5 gallon batches made but when I retire in a few decades I wont have to buy alcohol in my old age. Just go down to my cellar. I end up taking a six pack of 12 oz bottles to freinds parties and giving some here and there away but I plan on having 6 to 10 dozen batches when I am 70 or so, all diffrent flavors. That is going to be about 30 years away. Meanwile, I can test a sixpack or two to see what batches are good and deserve repeating. I only have a six pack of my first brew left and that was 3 years ago. So yeah, 40 years or so of brewing. When I am 70-75 I wont be brewing much and I will be able to give my equipment to my kids and teach them to brew. An heirloom brewing system, sounds good. That and they can if they wish pickle my dead body in my mead when I am dead. Wont matter to me as I will be dead.

Imagine that inheritence. Several carboys and a few cases of homebrew and notes on it.
 
I drank my first batch in 2 weeks, by myself, (wife hated it). 2nd and 3rd batches, (st paul porter and a honey weizen, both from NB), came on tap at about the same time, last thursday. We had a pint or two from each.

Then we had 6 people over on Sat. Night. That's right, just 6 measly people.

I'm out of beer now. :( (but have Cent. Blonde ready to keg, a Brown Ale a week away, and my 2 hearted clone is boiling as we speak)

So 6 people plus me and SWMBO killed 10 gallons in a night. Plus a bottle of red wine. Plus a bottle of sherry. At least I know I can brew good beer that non homebrew drinkers like!!!
 
I stopped updating my sig, 'cause it's too much work. I only brew around once a month, but about half the time, it's ten gallons. With six corny kegs and about that many carboys, I could theoretically have 60 gallons of beer going at any time.

Truthfully, I usually range between 15-20 gallons finished and ready to drink at a given time, with another five or ten bulk aging. I give away a fair bit of my beer, and somehow, I manage to go through the rest.
 
jds said:
I stopped updating my sig, 'cause it's too much work.
Click to expand...

Yeah!! I used to have the inverse problem of the OP. I was brewing like a madman with no beer to drink. Now things have stabilized. I drink some, friends drink some, I give a lot away to coworkers. I have 2 filing cabinets full of bottles, a couple kegs in the kegerator, and a few batches on the way. This is where I wanted to be 6 months ago and I finally have it dialed in - except that i should have alternated bottling/kegging instead of doing each in bursts.
 
Most people move up from 5 to 10 gallon batches, but I have actually started brewing 3 gallon ones. I don't drink nearly as much as I did in college and I like the fact that I can brew 3-4 times a month and not have tons of beer sitting around, waiting for my friends to drink it. Also, since I have started entering competitions pretty frequently, I can brew a few recipes at the same time and enter the better beer without having lots left over.
 
I fall into the category so well described by "Revvy." It's all about the pipeline. I enjoyed the cool Summer here in the Midwest, because it allowed me to fill the pipleine spang up. That will come in handy now, because I won't be able to brew again until after Thanksgiving, and maybe I won't be able to brew between the holidays at all, and that means no brewing until January.

Right now, everything's in bottles except for two batches ready to go into secondary this week- a Fuller's ESB clone and an India Brown Ale. On the shelves are batches of Imperial Stout, Winter Ale, Ed Wort's Haus Pale Ale, Hank's Hefeweizen, Amarillo Ale, Bee Cave Brewery Rye IPA and BCB Robust Porter. There are two or three sixes sitting around from a half-dozen other batches.

Seems like a lot of beer down there, but since I put away 2-3 bottles a day, and my wife 1-2, and when family visits over the holidays, by January that inventory will be pulled way down. Part of the secret to homebrewing is managing the pipeline and practicing "inventory control."
 
It takes me a while to go through beer but lately I have blown through it because of parties and people now knowing that I homebrew and bring it with me. For what it's worth many people say the beer gets finished faster from friends when kegged for whatever reason. I still bottle however.
 

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