Anyone else not buy retail beer?

[hotwatermusic]

I have drifted towards strictly tap room stuff at local breweries and my own. Tasting the best examples of perfectly presented fresh beer gives me all the motivation I need and it feels good seeing where my money is going and tasting the results of past "investments". I still will buy special bottles or good examples of styles I don't have going at the moment, but it's true that a $7 bomber feels silly.

 

[Paps]

Before i got into homebrewing i'd casually kill a 6-12 pack of Guinness in a sitting. Would do this sometimes 3 days a week. It was $7 a sixer at the time/place but that indeed can add up. Now that i homebrew i actually consume much less in total quantity of beer. I almost never buy carry-out beer and will only do if it's a style i haven't tried yet or something i find to be very good.(Boulevards "Harvest Dance" for example) I do try to support local so i will buy beers if i am eating somewhere and i will also buy some of the beers that the Bentonville Brewery makes as they allow us to hold our monthly homebrew meetings at their tap-room. Beyond that....it's a rarity that i purchase commercial beers anymore and i refuse to buy anything from In-Bev including any of the craft brewery it buys out.

 

[tennesseean_87]

I'm the same way, OP. For me, it's mostly a money thing. Once I started brewing, I didn't have much left to spend on commercial beer, and most of the time I don't need any extra beer lying around. I do love variety, which is why it's great to trade brews with other brewers or brew lots of small and split batches (as I do in the link in my sig). When I think about the cost of a six-pack and the fact that I can brew a case of beer for that much money, it just doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[mattdee1]

My mix is probably 75% homebrew and 25% from the store. Just enough to mix things up a bit.

 

[Peleus74]

I've been brewing 5+ years. For the first several years I did buy more various craft beers. But I find now that I make beer equal or better than good craft beer, and usually much better than the the stale old stuff found in convenience or groc stores. I'm now at the point where I just drink mine and avoid the expense and disappointment.

 

[C-Rider]

We have a local store that often sells dated S.N. beer for $5 a 12 pack. I can't brew that cheep and S.N. makes good beer.

 

[bobeer]

I have my must buys from my days of drinking 100% commercial beer. Mostly SN like Celebration and Big Foot but other than that I try to strictly drink homebrew. With having a 2 year old and a son on the way, due in Aug, I can't justify spending money on homebrewing AND commercial beer. It really just doesn't make any sense. I'd rather spend the 30-50 bucks a week i'd spend on commercial beer on homebrewing stuff. Plus you can't beat the freshness of homebrew. Ever since my beer has been turning out great I'm finding it really difficult to find something in the store that would be as enjoyable and just pulling a pint from my basement.

Plus homebrewing gives me something to do and something personally to look forward to. It's a great hobby and it's fun to share my beer with family and friends. You just don't get that with buying beer. Sure, it's fun to buy a bomber and share it with a buddy but it doesn't have the same lure to me. Guy 1 "where you buy this beer?" Guy 2 "At the local market. It was new so I figured I'd give it a go." Guy 1 "Oh cool, Thanks for sharing!" Guy 1 drinking homebrew. "Oh you brewed this? Wow, it's great. How did you come up with this?" Guy 2 who made homebrew goes on a long rant about what went into the beer, how the brew day was, why he brewed said beer, etc, etc, etc... It's a much more intimate experience and one both parties are more likely to remember down the road.

Yea, I'm a little bias since I homebrew but I will say it still feels a little weird to go into a store and not wander through the beer isle as much as I used to. Keeping the pipeline full pretty much deters me from buying beer at the store. I can't look my wife in the eye and put a 6er in the cart knowing I have 10+ gallons of beer in carboys and 2 full kegs in the fridge hahaha.

 

[Bruinsfan]

Proud to say that I have not bought beer from the store in 2 years

 

[cubalz]

I only drink beer that I brew and have for quite a long time. My beer tastes the best to me.

 

[BrewMan13]

Still mix it up quite a bit, since I like variety and only have space for one homebrew on at a time. Like to frequent local breweries/taprooms as much as possible.

 

[brewswithshoes]

Agree with most here that buying retail has been drastically reduced. I still buy beers when visiting new breweries (travel a lot for work). Something about having a beer I can't get locally makes me feel special [emoji849]
Otherwise it's one of the 3 taps I have going. I need to get/make a beer gun so I can bottle some of my own off of kegs. That would help increase the variety on hand too.

 

[lslbrew]

I usually keep standard styles of beer on tap and we will buy seasonal beers that we don't want a keg or two around. When life gets in the way and pipeline gets too low my wife will buy commercial beer. Recently I had a "well duh" moment and realized that if my tap runs out we don't need to buy bottles of beer, I can get a 1/6 keg at the store and put something else on tap to hold us over. I guess it was too obvious for me to think of before.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I've only bought beer only twice in the last 2 years, each time it was a case of cans to take camping.

 

[Smellyglove]

I buy retail beer all the time to keep up with references. If I didn't sample references left and right I guess I'd be brewing some pretty lame beers which are supposed to be within a certain style. But I prefer them from tap, but not everything I'm seeking is available on tap when I "need" it.

 

[Stake]

I'll admit it...I bought a case of commercial beer,
BUT my defense isn't that I enjoy commercial beer of my own... Rather it's a means of buying reusable bottles that come full of beer.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

I always have some Bud Light easy drinkers on hand for when I'm not in the mood for a heavier homebrew. That's about all I buy. I'd like to buy more quality beer to try them out but at $15 a 4 pack I'm way to cheap. For $30 I can have 4 cases of homebrew

 

[MapleGroveAleworks]

OP here. Still buy very little if any retail beer. I probably average about $5/mo on retail beer. Basically a 6 pack every other month. It's probably less than that as it really is fairly rare in my house. Prices are too high for me and I like my beer so it works out.