As far as people who talk about home brewing on-line I bet you are right on. And I wish making beer was as simple as following directions like putting together a TV stand, or making a package of ramen noodles. But the truth is that you are manipulating a living organism, and trying to create an environment for it to create something suitable for your taste plus other various requirements. Making sub-par beer is very easy, and like mentioned above... saying it was good doesn't actually make it good. You can use the best grains, awesome conical fermentation chamber, and liquid yeast, but oops! I mashed in too high, or too low, or pitched too hot, or fermented too high, or didn't sanitize something all the way, or oxidized my wort, or under fermented... and now all of my awesome grain, my steel conical fermenter, liquid yeast, and awesome set up didn't matter. I should have learned to brew something easy before I spent all this money and wasted time messing with all of this fancy stuff.
