If you don't brew beer...why not?

Yeah, I would have to either brew during the summer for parties (i.e. short-lived beers) or brew age-able beers (stouts and barleywines) so I could take my time with them and have them yearly. I would love to brew sours, but I think I should leave that to the professionals. I mean most breweries don't even mess with them. That is a brewery specialization right there.

 

I've taken a Hiatus as I mentally prepare to step it up to all grain. And also cause I want to make a Imperial Stout this time.....And i'm prepared for the worse....

 

I'm a third generation home brewer with lots of friends that brew. I love it, I recently scaled back from AG back to extract w/ specialty grains. I can get up early on a Saturday and be cleaned up before my wife and son are out of bed. And I'll tell you what, some of my recent extract batches I'd put up against anyone's AG

 

I chose "other" because I just don't have much space at my house right now. I wish there were some sort of community brewing facility I could use (shared space, like a community garden where you tend your own plot).

 

I used to homebrew 20 years ago, and I enjoyed the beer I made—although I'm pretty sure I would think it was crap if I tasted it now. It was certainly a rewarding process. But it can also be messy and time-consuming, and you need a certain amount of space as well as patience. At the end of it, you're stuck with 5 gallons of the same beer that you need to drink while it's still fresh.

Ultimately, for me buying beer from professional brewers is about convenience, variety, and quality. It's one of the few luxury items I allow myself. I might get back into brewing someday but for now, free time is extremely limited and I prefer to spend it doing other things.

 

I brew all-grain in an apartment, I'm gonna brew tonight & it will take me from the time I get home from work at 6 till around 10, it's not that hard, quit your excuses!

 

There are three main reasons for me, the first two being more significant than the third:

1. Initial investment. I'm poor, man. And I'm unsure if I want to plunge a couple hundred dollars into equipment and ingredients for a hobby I'm not sure I could stick with. Besides, what if my first ten batches of beer all suck balls? Waaaay too much time and money for me to justify that, at least at this point in my life.
2. Time involved. Not just brew time, but partly because I want to brew saisons mostly, which unless I'm mistaken can take a while (sometimes, anyway).
3. Variety. Some people have mentioned above that they don't want to end up with two cases of beer they don't like on their hands. I am definitely in this category.

Now, that said, I fully intend to get into brewing—just not right now. Not while I'm a grad student with almost no income and moving every 6 months or so, sometimes across state lines. But I'd like nothing more than to have my own personal cache of unique, enjoyable saisons in cork and cage bottles that I can bust out whenever or bring to parties or share with family (especially because my brother, who generally isn't much into beer, loves saisons (and Brewery Ommegang) in much the same way that I do). That, and cream ales, oddly. For some reason, I love a good cream ale.

 

good grief, I take enough flack for all the beer I have stashed in the house already- that's just easy fodder for the wife.

plus, I like beer-drinking- not chemistry.

 

I see lack of variety as a reason not to brew all the time.

Personally, I prefer to drink IPA's and I would be bored if all I had to drink was the same handful of commercial IPA's that I like and are fresh enough to buy. Everytime I put an IPA on tap, its slighlty different due to having the ability to change the recipe, and when hops are in the keg, changes character almost daily - and freshness is guaranteed. Therefore I brew for more variety, not less.

But homebrewing is pretty much for drinkers, not so appealing to people who like to taste a different flavor every few ounces.

 

I homebrew and after many batches over the last 8 years, I've realized that Hefeweizens and Belgian Strong golden/Tripel ales are the only ones I make that I find are comparable or superior to my favorite commercial versions. I find the process satisfying but also time consuming and expensive and after all my efforts have decided that I'd rather drink the best of the commercial versions that I can find and only brew some special batches a few times a year. Now I give greater care and concentration to those batches and exercise greater control over my processes than when I was trying to pump out as many batches as I could of as many different styles as I could. The result is that I savor and value my homebrews more now.

 

I don't really have the space for it, especially a good place to let it sit for weeks. Even though it does sound a little intimidating, id be more than willing to try (and possibly fail) when we move into a bigger place.

 

F) Not yet.

 

My hobby of consuming beer takes up too much of my time.

 

I understand that. I am not someone who likes to taste a different flavor every few ounces, but if I had 2+ cases of homebrew, it would last at least a couple of months even if that's all I drank. I don't drink enough to want that kind of supply of a single beer. I do see the appeal for either a) beers that don't need to be consumed fresh or b) people who drink more than I do.

 

I like cooking, but hate cleaning up dishes.

Total homebrewing process is mostly cleaning. I hate cleaning. Therefore I hate homebrewing.

Tried it for a few years and couldn't stand it any longer.

Also the alleged savings is completely misleading. It always ignores the value of one's time. That's the serious part. To be lighthearted, either homebrewers are extremely poor people with low opportunity costs for their time, or they are a strange bunch because they sincerely love to spend time cleaning things.

 

I live in a hot shoe box with my wife and 2 small kids and have a full-time job. Send me your homebrew.

 

Don't forget tho, everytime you go out homebrewing you come home with something.

 

That's funny, right there! Even worse for me, I am a process engineer in the food/beverage industry. Compounding that, I work in R & D developing new processes. I do use a simple Tru Brew type set up, but the process developer in me is looking for scrap stainless I can build stuff with and how I could apply automated control to temperatures and timing. You'd think the simplicity of five gallon buckets and a glass carboy would be some sort of stress relief given what I do twelve hours a day, but it somehow just fans the flames.

Oddly enough, what kept me from starting in the first was being worried about the complexity and making mistakes.

 

I like craft beer but Im not some diehard, super uber beer geek so I really have no interest in homebrewing. I mean I also like music but I dont play an instrument ya know

 

Brewing my own stuff is something I would love to do in the near future but right now I do not have the time, space. or the money. But someday hopefully.