Brewing at home

I was first introduced to the concept of brewing beer at home years ago when dad decided to give it a go. I didn’t think much of it at the time but apparently it wasn’t bad as my brother used to be more than happy to take a few bottles with him on his way to parties at the weekend.

Anyway, I then moved away from home and forgot all about it for maybe 20 years. It all changed when I bought our first house with my wife, Tatiana. Getting a house of our own provided the stimulus for me to get into homebrew in two ways.

The reasons

First, we suddenly had space. Moving from a small two bedroom apartment into a proper house left us with more space than we knew what to do with. Setting aside a cupboard in the kitchen for my homebrew seemed like a good idea so that’s what I did.

Secondly, we suddenly had a huge debt in the form of a mortgage.  There is nothing like knowing that the bank will happily take your home away from you to bring your finances into sharp focus. Given that cases of beer at the shop generally start at around $35 and that an equivalent case of home brew can be made for as little as $12 it’s a fairly obvious choice.

The conclusions

After getting started I started to realize the full scope and flexibility of what you can do with a fairly basic homebrew kit.

If you’re not happy with the way your brew turns out, you just adjust the recipe. Adjusting the type and amount of sugar or the amount of hops can have dramatic affects on the end product and finding out which recipe you like best is, to my mind, the whole point of doing it in the first place.

Of course these are not the only adjustments you can make. But finding out the secrets of the perfect brew for yourself is half the fun.

Moving forward, The Equipment, Brewing and Bottling pages go through the equipment you need and how to get started while the Brewing Tips page gives you some pointers on how to improve your brew. After that, it’s up to you. Experiment, have fun and enjoy the fruits of your labour. Beer is good, enjoy it!