Brewing Your Own Good Beer on the Cheap
Back in college, for kicks, I started brewing my own beer with kits I purchased from a company called Windriver Brewing Company, located out of Wisconsin. Two friends of mine in college actually started before me and, through their urging, I started to brew myself. Since graduating though I haven’t brewed a batch and I’m looking to get back into it since it was so much fun and so easy to do.
For the frugalists out there, you can get a full kit (I have the All World Apprentice kit) for $57.95 (+ shipping) which comes with everything you’ll need to brew your first batch (except bottles), including an ingredient kit (Ingredient kits usually run about $25 a piece), and each batch makes 5 gallons, or 640 ounces, or fifty three beers. That’s a dollar a beer on your first batch and only fifty cents a beer on your second batch! The beer also only take three weeks to prepare (two weeks to brew in the bucket, one week to carbonate in the bottle) so you can enjoy it very soon after starting the process.
Brewing beer is really really simple and it’s an opportunity to try something new (and good). I’m a huge fan of stouts, I love Guinness, and so when you can get an Oatmeal Stout ($23.95) or a Milkhouse Cream Stout ($22.95) at that price, you can’t beat it. Imagine drinking Guinness-like (slightly different flavors of course) at fifty cents a bottle!
I’m not going to go into the details of how to brew beer except that it takes, in total, maybe five hours of time (spread across three days in the three weeks). You can also buy bottles (big bottles too to save on the time you’ll spend) or just keep bottles you drink (they can’t be domestic twist off bottle caps, they need to be bottle-opener necessary bottles like Samuel Adams or Newcastle).
The two friends who turned me onto the idea of brewing have since graduated to buying grains themselves and skipping the kit but I think kits are still the way to go for the novice weekend dabbler such as myself. Honestly, at 50 cents a beer for a high quality beer, how can you afford to not to brew your own beer?
Photo is by *Huw*.
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There are 11 comments, add your thoughts now!
Sweet! Now THIS is useful personal finance advice! A buddy of mine and I tried home brewing once. We followed a recipe online instead if a kit. We ended up with over fermented skunky stuff. I agree, for newbies, go with the kit.
How do you rate it, on a taste scale?
Well you pick your ingredient kit based on what you like, I think that the stouts I brewed were as good as Guinness/Murphy Irish if not better, of course I am biased because I brewed it.
You won’t think that you’re drinking an inferior beer but I wouldn’t brew a light beer since it’s really not worth all that effort to brew yourself a miller lite.
Weekly Roundup - 05/05/06
Before I get rolling on this week’s roundup, I just wanted to remind y’all about the MoneyBlogNetwork Forums, which are fast becoming a treasure trove of information for personal finance bloggers of all shapes and sizes. Please stop by and …
I’ve been brewing beer for years; in fact, my fiance and I are giving homebrew to our wedding guests as the favor. Which reminds me, I need to get going brewing that…
Depending upon the style of beer, it can take more than 3 weeks. In fact, almost everything I make has at least a two month turnaround, and my stouts and porters usually have about a 4 or 5 month turnaround before I start drinking them. They taste so much better after they have aged.
Generally speaking, the first batch is the hardest while you wait for it to be ready. I use a racking system where I leave it in the primary fermenter for 1 to 2 weeks (depending on style) and then rack it to another fermenter to get it out of its sediment for anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months. Sometimes I will rack it more than once. The trick is to start the next batch right after the first batch before you can drink it, because then once you do start drinking it you are currently drinking the brew from a few months ago.
I also recommend kegs; they are much easier than bottling. I also use my kegs to do the bottling, which is better than gravity. I will say, though, that unless you are doing all grain brewing, the costs are not a whole lot cheaper than what you would normally buy. A little bit, but not a ton. The satisfaction of having your own recipes though…mmmmm….
Great comment Blaine, I agree, if you start getting into creating your own recipes and multiple fermentation periods (I do agree, the longer the better) the price will start going up but at that point you’re loving the craft and not just trying to get a cheap beer.
I starting using glass carboys but the first time I did it, I put the hot mixture into the glass and ran some water on it… boom, explosion, extreme sadness, and then frustration as I had to clean it up. Hot to cold real quick in glass is BAD.
“how can you afford not to brew your own beer?”
easy. be a joy-kill bastard like me and not drink at all.
[...] Since it is Friday, I thought I would help you wind down by pointing you to Jim’s blog for some instruction on Brewing Your Own Beer. I am a beer fan. I sometimes stand for minutes in front of the beer case at Kroger trying to figure out what beer to try. I have never tried to brew my own. Maybe I will someday. [...]
I may have to pick up a kit on my next trip back home - at $2.50 a beer for the cheap stuff out here, it would be a great savings. Wonder if I’ll have any trouble importing it?
For Cap the joy-killer, I will point out that many homebrew supply stores will also happily sell you kits and ingredients for making your own soda at home. I don’t know whether that is cost-effective or not, but it might be worth checking into.
[...] Brewing Your Own Good Beer on the Cheap at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity [...]
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