Reasons for starting home brewing?

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LawnMower

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Hi everyone,
I'm new to the forums and thought it would be interesting to see how people got into the hobby. I brewed my first batch about a month ago and will bottle this weekend and brew the next batch. I already have my next 4 batches lined up and planned. Its proving to be quite the obsession!

My reasons for starting home brewing was to learn more about the different styles and how different ingredients affect the tastes of different beers. I basically wanted to learn what makes good beers!

Being from San Diego there is definitely not a shortage of craft beer selections. Home brewing was a way for me to learn more about all the awesome choices around me. So, what about you? Why home brewing?
 
I wanted to learn more about beer and thought"Hey I could save a bit of money making this myself". Homebrewing is a great way learn about beer and the beer making process. You can also show of something you have created and if you're a DIYer then this is the hobby for you!

Welcome to a great hobby and to the forum.
 
I have a couple friends that brewed together and they talked me into it. Their help made getting started easy as far as equipment, recipes, and knowledge.

Of course an ever increasing love of beer sure helped.
 
List of Breweries distributed in my state

Blue Mountain
Boston Beer Co. (Sam Adams)
Breckenridge
Bridge Brew Works
Chestnut Brew Works
Flying Dog
Goose Island
Great Lakes
Harpoon
Hook & Ladder
Iron City
Leinenkugel
Lion Brewery
Magic Hat
Matt (Saranac)
Mendocino
Mountain State
Napa Smith
Pyramid
Redhook
RJ Rockers
Rogue
Sierra Nevada
Southern Tier
Spoetzl (Shiner)
Widmer Bros.
Yuengling
 
Because it is fun and the result is good beer.

I really got into brewing because I love to cook and to me brewing is just an extension of that. Being able to make recipes that you like is the creative part of the hobby that I really like. I also like sharing with my friends. I is great fun to have some friends over and taste a lot of the brews I made.
 
I stared in the Dark ages when Michalob was an exotic good beer. We got dust on top, canned malt extract, Soft drink bottle caps and saved long neck bottles. Hops were called hops, what kind, who knew. What I did find out was what we produced was way better than the swill that you could buy. When I found Charlie P's book, it was the bible. Okay, I'm a little older.
 
I like making many things myself, even though I could easily buy them. Wine, beer, soap, etc- I make those because I can make things better at home than I could buy.

I like being as self sufficient as possible- growing my own food, getting my meat from a neighbor, and not buying things from a grocery store very often.

I think that is what really got me interested in brewing- making things my way for myself and enjoying it.
 
Making it, having something different, something fresh. Initially I thought cost savings too, but I'm not convinced I'm saving any money brewing extract kits/extract recipes. It's the hobby and enjoyment of it.
 
One thing leads to another: Bought bees to pollinate fruit trees -> Have more honey than I can eat -> need to make mead -> found HBT while researching mead -> made mead, no more honey until next fall, empty carboy -> HBT has really good info on making beer -> made a caramel amber ale -> taste good -> addiction to brewing

Moral of story - stay away from bees unless you like beer.
 
I like beer, I don't know anyone for the most part in this state so I found something I could do on my own and have fun. Problem solved.
 
My coworker told me he is a homebrewer and I remembered that I got a Mr. Beer kit from my former roommate. It was already old so I went to the LHBS and asked what I can do with it. I walked out with a Bitburger clone recipe and a homebrew starter kit.

I don't regret the decision at all although it will get expensive easily if you get too deep into the hobby :D

These are reasons why I stick with the hobby:
  1. you can drink fresh beer
  2. you MADE that beer
  3. you should have plenty of beer, always on hand
  4. it gives you something to do
  5. you'll learn a lot about everything: microbiology, welding, cleaning, cooking, building, etc.
  6. did I mention it makes beer?

:mug:
 
I was off of work for a month after getting my hips replaced. I hadn't really thought about brewing but I did read Palmer's book twice while I was off. I also spent hours every day lurking on this forum. The chemistry, biochemistry, and recipe building got me into it. Early on, I found it to be far and away the most relaxing and therapeutic escape from my high pressure career. I love the beer I make and every brew day is like a little vacation. That's what keeps me going.
 
SeeMont said:
I stared in the Dark ages when Michalob was an exotic good beer. We got dust on top, canned malt extract, Soft drink bottle caps and saved long neck bottles. Hops were called hops, what kind, who knew. What I did find out was what we produced was way better than the swill that you could buy. When I found Charlie P's book, it was the bible. Okay, I'm a little older.
Click to expand...
I remember those days
when your sorce fro supplies was a classified add in the back of mother earth news
and half the malt extract you bought was pre hopped

sheesh, it is a wonder we even survived
 
Like others here, I like cooking and making things. I like knowing exactly what is going into what I am making. In the case of food and drink, I don't have to worry about all the extra chemicals and stuff. In my other hobbies, as well as these, I take personal pride and pleasure in a well made product and it gives me even greater pleasure when I am able to share it with family and friends and they enjoy it as much or more than I do.
 
Subsailor said:
Like others here, I like cooking and making things. I like knowing exactly what is going into what I am making. In the case of food and drink, I don't have to worry about all the extra chemicals and stuff. In my other hobbies, as well as these, I take personal pride and pleasure in a well made product and it gives me even greater pleasure when I am able to share it with family and friends and they enjoy it as much or more than I do.
Click to expand...

Subsailor - that is quite the list of boats over by your name. And all old and small. Only have SSBN731 in my past.

Thanks for keeping us safe through superior fire power.
 
For me it also seemed a natural progression from cooking. I do like beer and I don't have a great selection of beers available locally.

I'd kicked the idea around and never acted on it until I drank a Duvel and thought "Dang, it would be cool to make something like this 'cause I can't afford to buy it regularly"

That seemed to open the floodgates. Now I focus on Belgian styles but also do wines, cure meats and cheeses, and I'm constantly adding to the list.
 
Saw an interview with a Viking Metal band where they took a gallon of water, poured some out, dumped some honey, bread yeast and an orange in. Shook for a couple minutes and fitted it with a balloon. I was like "well I can do that!" Now my house looks like a laboratory lol. Carboys and buckets everywhere.

rhino farts and rocket fuel!
 
I like the idea that someday when I retire I can grow my ingredients, brew, and drink my own beer as a hobby. I want to live in the sticks and it sounds like an awesome, time consuming hobby that also give great reward for a job well done. I need to start off with the basics here first.
 
A friend of mine wanted to visit a brewery on a whim so I joined him. I wasn't much of a beer drinker and had only experienced your standard macro beers, and really only drank them at social gatherings so I wasn't even a big fan of beer in general. We entered the brewery and they had a section where you learned how the beer was made. Now I really love to understand how things work but for some reason beer had never interested me...I couldn't tell you one ingredient in beer. My friend starts pointing to various things...and even though the signs tried to explain it all...we were clueless. Malts, hops...it was like visiting an impressionist art gallery in a foreign country. I'd like to say that it was a craft brewery and it changed my impression of beer in the tasting room...but it wasn't. We had our samples and left.

I left there with this huge frustration that I gleamed very little knowledge and nearly no understanding from the experience. I needed to wrap my head around it all. I started research on brewing, and discovered that people did it from home! I visited a homebrew shop with only the intention of maybe picking up a book or learning a bit more...I was sure that it was far to complicated for me to ever try. They introduced me to the concept of extract. I walked out of that store with a full homebrewing kit haha.

Oddly enough it was actually homebrewing that got me into craft beer. I started seeing all these different recipes and styles in books and started seeking them out. That in turn made me want to craft them...

I'll tell you one thing though. I love going to breweries, and I always learn something new.
 
i was always fascinated by chemistry and never understood it in school. so over 10 years ago when i was underage i bought a knockoff mr beer kit. made some 'beer' and it was terrible. some years went by and then i decided one day, wait, people make good homebrew.....but how? so i did some research, found this site, read, read, read. bought my equipment and my waistline has grown lol
 
Teromous said:
Oddly enough it was actually homebrewing that got me into craft beer. I started seeing all these different recipes and styles in books and started seeking them out. That in turn made me want to craft them...
Click to expand...

That's interesting, you must have been pretty curious to brew something you weren't a fan of... haha... :rockin:
 
The episode of Three's Company where Mr. Roper made beer has intrigued me since I was a kid. Thought I'd give it a try...


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
I'll admit cost was a huge selling point for me. Even the simplest idiot proof* kits that have full batch volume included in a giant bag of liquid can be found for less than $40. That's about the cost of a 24 of craft beer if you're lucky. But you get 2 1/2 cases from it. The least expensive kit I made was a grand total of $16 all in.

Now making the AG switch means more savings and much more control over the process. That's where things are just starting to get quite interesting and I've got enough "experiments" planned (hefeweizen with some crystal, name it later) to keep my busy for months.

*not a guarantee
 
I started long ago enough that I don't have a clear memory but at the time a friend worked at Baltimore Brewing Company. I loved good beer (having spent a long time in Germany) and really sought out microbrews and imports. I got a Brewers Best kit as a gift and started making my own. That was almost 20 years ago... Damn, when I look at that I feel old...
 
Like some others, I started way back. The early 90's were pretty slim on brew shops, and the internet didn't have online shopping, hell it was barley anything at all back then, and I couldn't imagine how long it would have taken to upload the site, then download an order...my guess would be 3 hours....lol
Everything was pre-hopped extract and whatever yeast came with it(usually taped to the top of the can). Made some good ones and some bad. I got out for a while, then in 1997 a real homebrew shop opened a few miles from me. That little HBS didn't last a year, but I was hooked and never looked back. It's funny, but if those people had opened that shop 5 years later, it would probably still be going strong.
 
The wife got me a Brewer's Best starter kit for my birthday. The LHBS is in the same parking lot as the NTB and my barber, so I'd wandered through a few times and remarked that I might want to give it a shot.
 
Yooper said:
I like making many things myself, even though I could easily buy them. Wine, beer, soap, etc- I make those because I can make things better at home than I could buy.

I like being as self sufficient as possible- growing my own food, getting my meat from a neighbor, and not buying things from a grocery store very often.

I think that is what really got me interested in brewing- making things my way for myself and enjoying it.
Click to expand...

This for the most part, and because I live out in the country, and get bored easily.
 
I sometimes drink beer in a pub and say 'I can make better beer than that'. Sometimes I say 'I wish I could make beer like that'. Either way it inspires me. I like brewing the best beer I can with great ingredients and simple equipment and doing it a little better each time. I've been doing it for years and I've never stopped learning.
 
I love cooking and experimenting while I cook, same with coffee roasting, blending and ultimately the quest for great espresso and other forms of coffee. Brewing beer fits in with these perfectly, I can experiment endlessly, enjoy great tasting flavors (and some not so great) and have fun. Beer people and coffee people are generally very cool too and often intermix.
 
I grew up in a craft brew heavy area in Northern California, so there is nothing about craft brew I dont love. I'm also a big DIYer so I feel it was only natural I started home brewing.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
A guy I knew brought some homebrew on a couple scuba trips about 7 years ago and it got me thinking about why I wasn't making my own beer. He directed me towards the LHBS where I was living at the time where I got my first extract/partial mash kit. It has been nothing but up up up since then.
 
Very simple....

I starter home brewing because I like to drink beer.

The brewing process, and savings were two really great additional experiences, but the beer man.... it was the beer.

I simply love beer.
 
My roommate from some 15 years ago was a home brewer. I thought at the time 'what a waste, just go buy some beer'. Then I tried some home brew and it was really good! The equipment and process also intrigued me after watching for a while.

So I went to the LHBS and bought a starter kit...
 
I'm laughing at anyone saying they do it to save money :)


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 

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