Collectors vs Brewers?

ive been brewing for about 6 years now, and in the works on taking the next step, ive been collecting for for a while now, it hurts the wallet haha, i usually have about 4-5 beers going every few weeks while looking for "whales" or anything new. ive said that this year im laying low on the festivals making dark lord my last big fest for the year besides local fests. ive also been getting 1-2 bottles of limited releases rather than, dishing out for as many as i can get... leaning more toward brewing in the long run.

 

I have wondered this too. why stand in line for heady if you can clone your own?

 

Because if it was that easy to make Heady, people wouldn't go to the lengths they do to get it. I don't doubt the brewing abilities of veteran homebrewers, but cloning Heady is not something very many people are capable of.

 

Absolutely nothing useful to back this up, but my guess is that for the most part it would either be one or the other (when we're using the term serious). I'm sure there will be some outliers though.

For me I love to try beers, but don't really collect (for various reasons, but in part due to a very small NYC apartment). Have homebrewed a couple times too, but again that's limited for the same reason.

 

I used to be into buying expensive bombers to age and treat myself occasionally. But, the more I bought and the more serious I got with the brewing, the more I thought, "Why spend so much money on other people's beer when I can use it to brew more of my own?"

It's gotten to be the same way with lots of other things...I could use a new pair of shoes, but that's 50 bucks or so that I could spend on brewing ingredients/equipment. Nah, the shoes are fine.

And so on.

 

I collect and homebrew. Homebrew is for everyday drinking, collection for special occasions. Now that I can make Berliner Weisse though, I probably won't be trading for any.

The speed and low cost it takes to make these Berliners astounds me...It's very feasible for me with my small apartment setup to create 40 bottles of it a week.

I'm not going to have the resources to make barrel aged beer anytime in the near future though, those are the bottles I collect.

 

I don't collect beer. Beer is made to be drank and shared. My homebrew is no different than the commercial stuff in terms of hoarding and sharing.

 

I try not to fall for the hype, though I do go out of my way for HopSlam every year. If I really, really crave one of the limited releases, I'll go ahead and make it so I can drink it year-round, but that's rare. Then I'll buy it when it comes out (if I can buy it, why would I bother making it?) A bit of research is all it takes, really. I also tend to tweak the recipe just a bit to make it more to my liking (no matter how good it tastes, it's the brewer's preference, not mine. I like HopSlam with a touch more bitterness, for example)
I've never tasted Heady, so I won't comment on the practicality of brewing a clone.

 

my beer tastes (& budget allotment) have past a certain point where I don't really even bother walking down the row at the local beer shop where I might find the whalez. If I'm spending $15+ on a bottle, it will probably be made from a blend of red grapes. Realize many here may boo that, but I love a good rhone or chianti. I used to be a big collector of beers, but I'm kinda over that phase at this point in my life with house, kids & the associated work involved consuming me more than beer.

Homebrewing I'll go for experimental beers from time to time, but find <6% ABV spigots is generally where I'm pouring from. I love tasting what's available that pro-brewers are concocting from time to time in bigger tasting settings with friends, but my cellar has zero beers in it right now (oh wait, save for one Lawson's Finest bottle). If i do need to round out my keezer with pro-beers or going on a trip, I generally stick to the cooler with SN Pale Ale or Harpoon IPA or Hop Notch (i'm on a strict cans only diet).

 

I don't collect. I have a dozen or so beers that I'll buy if I don't have any homebrew that I want to drink at the moment. I"ll pick up a case or two of Celebration each winter. I'll sample a few new beers if I'm traveling out of state. Otherwise, I'm drinking 90% homebrew.

 

Cant compare, I have Homebrewed for 6 years and I don't even try to clone beers, did a few at first then just went off on creating my own, I also collect and am sitting on around 200 cellared beers. And to clone a beer that is exactly what you get from a brewery is hard if not close to impossible. (Cant clone the Bois)

 

I'm in the same boat as many of the others. I used to cellar a lot of commercial stuff. The more I got into brewing, and the more big beers and sours I made that took up room in my cellar I started asking why would I buy that $15-20 bottle of beer when I can make 2 cases worth of a beer like it for the cost of 2 bombers, and I don't have to drink a bomber of 1-15% ABV beer to boot. I've gotten off the hype train pretty much.

 

I got up to around 600 commercial bottles in the cellar at one point. Too much saved for "special occasion" - these days "it's Thursday" is enough of a special occasion to break open anything.

Then, after several thousand different commercial beers, much of the stuff I was driving all around the country to get started tasting awfully similar to several things I had had before, that was cheaper and more available.

I still have a small collection of commercial beers in my cellar, maybe 70-80 bottles of favorites like 3-5 year old Stone IRS. But with rare exception, my homebrew is better, cheaper, and more fun and satisfying than driving all over the place. These days I need those road trips/vacation days to go find cider apples anyway.

 

I'm growing tired of following the "watch-our-Twitter-for-the-announcement-of-when-WhaleX-is-released-and-only-available-for-about-4-minutes-before-it-is-sold-out" from local liquor stores to try and snag a bottle or two of the latest hot property.

As a result I have been leaning more toward increasing my homebrew output and augmenting with many of the fine readily-available-off-the-shelf beer out there.

It seems like a lot of "collector" threads seem more focused on wanting the prestige of a big cellar, rather than drinking beer.

 

When I get bored I start new hobbies, first it was cigars, I bought tons and tons of cigars and then just stopped smoking them, then I got into knives, got bored with that and sold them all, now im onto beer, I'll probably collect a ton and never drink it. But at least I can say I had that and that

 

When reintroducing myself to craft after a 7 year hiatus I was ticking and cellaring anything I could. After the initial push of those shenanigans I started homebrewing, and as my interest in brewing continues to grow and grow, my interests in chasing bottles continues to wane. I have a few favorites that I go out of my way for, but in the end, have been enjoying crafting my own beers infinitely more.

 

I am both. I do not think of myself as a beer "collector," but do have about 600 bottles I am cellaring. I make the "collector" distinction because I find the sort of trophy aspect of beer buying to be somewhat troubling. I like that beer is the drink of the proletariat and don't want it to become a thing where beer is something you own to own rather than own to drink. I have been trying to add less beer to the cellar and drink more of it, which seems to be working. I'd ultimately like to keep less beer than that lying around.

I did do a little cloning when I was learning to brew, but the only thing I've cloned in the last few years is Pliny, as it is not available where I live. Mostly, I'm not interesting in cloning things I can buy at the store. I'd rather just buy them. I am more interested in developing my own recipes and seeing what I can come up with.

If you told me I had to do away with cellaring or brewing, I'd hang on to brewing without question.

 

I come from a beer ticking/hoarding background and since starting to homebrew 1.5 years ago I've completely changed my ways and thinking about beer.

Most "beer geeks" aren't that into beer, they enjoy drinking, have addictive personalities, and don't connect with the wine and spirit world. They like trying new things and are fools for hype and marketing/branding despite what they claim. Homebrewers tend to be way more into beer, are far more educated, and thirsty for learning more (not just trying everything possible). They also tend to be interested in the beer that is in front of them and not the next hard to obtain thing. I firmly believe you can try thousands of beers and at the end of the day know little about beer.

For me it's much more rewarding and satisfying to pull my tap handle and enjoy a beer that I built to my tastes rather than waiting for someone else to (not to mention making it for much cheaper, fresher, and doesn't get much more local than my basement).

 

I was literally asking myself this same question earlier this week. I would say I'm currently in both camps, probably collector more than brewer if I'm honest with myself. I was in San Diego last week and while it was an awesome trip in terms of beer, I realized that the money I had spent on beer to bring home with me could have paid for some of the upgrades I have been wanting/needing to make in order to upgrade my current brewing setup. It was kind of a wake up call in terms of how much money I spend on the collector side that could be put to arguably better use on the brewer side. I'm rethinking my beer priorities as we speak...