Homebrew Design Project - Also hello!

[Raw-S]

Hi HBT,

I got into brewing a year or so ago and have been quite obsessed since. HBT has been my go-to since I started and I have always found the solutions required - cheers for that!

I am about to start my masters year of Product Design Engineering (Glasgow School of Art/University of Glasgow) and am lucky enough that my project is based around homebrewing. I am looking into making homebrewing more accessible to beginners and trying to get more people interested in the hobby.

• What are the main reasons people are drawn to brewing at home?
• Why are some people are initially apprehensive to start?

Would love to hear what you guys think and any stories about how you started.

Thanks!

 

[ncbrewer]

Welcome to the forum.
I don't know how to encourage more people to get into brewing beyond what is already being done - festivals, open-to-the-public brew days, etc. I think most people just randomly get interested or tasted a friend's homebrew.

 

[Matt86]

Hey, another Glasgow person on the forums - that's always good - I in fact studied at Glasgow Uni too (about 5 years ago though!).

Sounds like an excellent project...home brew you can blame on Uni...perfect.

I am also new the HB, only been doing it for about 6 months so far but love it and am addicted. Anyway, to answer your questions:

What are the main reasons people are drawn to brewing at home?

For me…

1. Lack of choice/ quality/ varieties: beer in the supermarkets I find is often poor quality and just really caters to the mass market, there is a lack of quality and variety that I found irritating; I had become fed up of seeing/ drinking the same beers over and over again, and in all honestly, not enjoying it much anymore!

2. Cost: yes you can go to the lovely craft beer shops in the West end of Glasgow (or wherever) and pick from a lovely and wide range of excellent bottles of beer – but you frequent those places too much and you soon find you’ll need to re-mortgage your house! So once I explored Home brewing and found out how cheap the ingredients were I was keen to give it a go.

3. Customisation: say you try a beer and like it but think maybe more/ less hops flavour (or whatever characteristic) would be good then you can go ahead and try and recreate it to suit your palette.

4. Making awesome beer for friends/ family, them enjoying it and you being able to say you made it yourself!

5. and more recently, a desire to recreate hard to get hold of beers. Take for example Pliny the Elder, I would love to taste it, however I don’t expect to go to California anytime soon and thus a homebrew clone is probably the closest I will get for now.

Why some people are initially apprehensive to start?

Cost of equipment: In all honestly, before I really researched it I assumed starting off would be very expensive and this held me back from going for it. It was only once I found out that HB can really be as cheap, or expensive as you want that I decided to start – there’s a kit for everyone’s budget!

Complexity of process: I pretty much assumed that the process of making beer would be very complicated/ time consuming and I’d need a degree in chemistry/ engineering to get something half decent – following on from reading books and other resources I realised I was wrong – it can be as complicated or easy as you want really and a better beer than what the supermarket offers is easily within reach.

Preconceptions: I spoke to my father in law about it when I was considering getting in to HB, he used to do it many years ago and had more than ones story about exploding bottles, blowouts during fermentation and not great tasting beer. This slightly put me off as I assumed that HB beer would never be anywhere near as good as beer you can buy in the pub/ off the shelf and the juice would not be worth the squeeze!

Space/ money/ time: My wife was convinced that HB would stink the house out, cost a small fortune and fill our house, so convincing here took a little while even after I was ready to jump in! That being said…our house is now full of homebrew stuff, so she was right about that!

Hope this helps!

 

[Matt86]

Hey, another Glasgow person on the forums - that's always good - I in fact studied at Glasgow Uni too (about 5 years ago though!).

Sounds like an excellent project...home brew you can blame on Uni...perfect.

I am also new the HB, only been doing it for about 6 months so far but love it and am addicted. Anyway, to answer your questions:

What are the main reasons people are drawn to brewing at home?

For me…

1. Lack of choice/ quality/ varieties: beer in the supermarkets I find is often poor quality and just really caters to the mass market, there is a lack of quality and variety that I found irritating; I had become fed up of seeing/ drinking the same beers over and over again, and in all honestly, not enjoying it much anymore!

2. Cost: yes you can go to the lovely craft beer shops in the West end of Glasgow (or wherever) and pick from a lovely and wide range of excellent bottles of beer – but you frequent those places too much and you soon find you’ll need to re-mortgage your house! So once I explored Home brewing and found out how cheap the ingredients were I was keen to give it a go.

3. Customisation: say you try a beer and like it but think maybe more/ less hops flavour (or whatever characteristic) would be good then you can go ahead and try and recreate it to suit your palette.

4. Making awesome beer for friends/ family, them enjoying it and you being able to say you made it yourself!

5. and more recently, a desire to recreate hard to get hold of beers. Take for example Pliny the Elder, I would love to taste it, however I don’t expect to go to California anytime soon and thus a homebrew clone is probably the closest I will get for now.

Why some people are initially apprehensive to start?

Cost of equipment: In all honestly, before I really researched it I assumed starting off would be very expensive and this held me back from going for it. It was only once I found out that HB can really be as cheap, or expensive as you want that I decided to start – there’s a kit for everyone’s budget!

Complexity of process: I pretty much assumed that the process of making beer would be very complicated/ time consuming and I’d need a degree in chemistry/ engineering to get something half decent – following on from reading books and other resources I realised I was wrong – it can be as complicated or easy as you want really and a better beer than what the supermarket offers is easily within reach.

Preconceptions: I spoke to my father in law about it when I was considering getting in to HB, he used to do it many years ago and had more than ones story about exploding bottles, blowouts during fermentation and not great tasting beer. This slightly put me off as I assumed that HB beer would never be anywhere near as good as beer you can buy in the pub/ off the shelf and the juice would not be worth the squeeze!

Space/ money/ time: My wife was convinced that HB would stink the house out, cost a small fortune and fill our house, so convincing here took a little while even after I was ready to jump in! That being said…our house is now full of homebrew stuff, so she was right about that!

Hope this helps!

 

[unionrdr]

It was a little different for me. Fermenting & distilling go way back in my family. I cut teeth on Grandma's corn squeezin's, both white & keg charred. Dad & grandma made wine, punkin hooch, etc. I made wine from age 15 up to about 30. Then, going on 5 years ago Christmas, my wife & I were watching youtube videos & drinkin' some beers. My middle son walks in & asks why don't I make wine again? We liked beer better at that point & decided to look up some videos on modern home brewing to see how things changed. I was surprised at the advances made & had a batch going by January. So it was an ancestral thing for me. But there are so many videos out there to watch & learn from, that it's getting more accessible to the general public these days. Or blogs on the web.
Some think it'll be cheaper to brew at home, & it still kind of is. Or they're intrigued by the whole brewing process that can be done in the home. Or finally being able to brew the kind of beer they like that may not be available where they live.

 

[Rivenin]

apprehensive... cost.

once you have everything, it's not a terribly expensive hobby (if staying mainly basic, without gadgets and gizmos a plenty... whosits and whatsits galore...)

But dropping $100 or more to start up is a bit painful for someone who would want to experience this hobby. (start up kit, $60 or $70, plus $20-$30 more for a pot if you don't have one big enough, plus bottles if you don't have any laying around, plus most kits don't have the capper and caps) Plus the inevitable not great first batch.

 

[Melana]

Welcome!

 

[unionrdr]

Not to brag, but some of us were interviewed for the site's Brew & A: series. You can read those for more background as well in the articles section.

 

[m00ps]

Not to brag, but some of us were interviewed for the site's Brew & A: series. You can read those for more background as well in the articles section.

Yeah like the first standard questions are "How did you start homebrewing?" and "Why do you homebrew?"

 

[Raw-S]

Not to brag, but some of us were interviewed for the site's Brew & A: series. You can read those for more background as well in the articles section.

Aw, awesome! I didn't come across it when I searched. I will definitely give it a read!
Thanks for all the responses so far.