you might be a homebrewer if...

your friends start comparing beers to yours.
your friends start giving you beers to clone.
your internet usage is 90% beer related.
and
Total strangers see your hops and inquire how many lbs of cascade is available, and there is none!!!!

 

You clean and sanitize your bung hole more often than your own bung hole

 

You finally clean and rearrange your porch, and promptly turn it into a dedicated brew space.

Your kegs start having offspring.

Walking past barley in the grocery store makes you look twice.

 

I've thought of this before.. when I spend $14.99 on a bomber and realize that's what it could cost me to make a 5-gal batch

 

Not sure I'd want to drink a beer that cost $15 for a 5 gallon batch...

 

4.2% abv and 15ibu beers pitched on a cake are an acquired taste.

 

You could make a pretty damn tasty blonde ale for that much at least with the prices I paid this year, especially if you ignore small costs like starsan, gypsum, and CO2 or bottle caps. Water and natural gas are included in my HOA fee, so I could brew w/ charcoal filtered tap water on my stove for "free" if I didn't feel like shelling out the six bucks for distilled water.

10# Bulk 2-row @ $.70/lb
1# specialty malts @ $2.49/lb
3 oz Centennial @ $1.49/oz
Pitch on (part of a) yeast cake @ $0
--------------------------------------
$13.96
$14.92 with 6.875% sales tax

Edit: Giving serious consideration to actually brewing this later this summer

 

If you buy hops in bulk, and save your yeast, then yea. That's how much you could spend on a pretty tasty batch of beer.

 

If you took 2nd prize in the science fair for taking gravity readings from syrups. Found these pictures a few weeks ago when my girlfriend and I visited my parents. Got a good laugh out of it.

 

That is WAAAAY COOL. I got a chuckle out of it too. Thanks for posting it.

 

If you subtracted some Hops, added some rice, and age it on beechwood, you could make Budweiser too.

 

IF YOU LOVE CRISP MARIS OTTER THIS MUCH:

 

I own and run a small IT consulting business.

When your customers give you a gift certificate to you local homebrew store.
When those same customers remind you to bring some of your last brew when you come to look at their network.
When relatives buy you silver hop cone ornaments for your Christmas tree.
When your close friends agree to let you teach them how to brew just so you'll shut up.

 

OK...How about
6lbs Maris Otter
.5lb Amber Malt
1 pack Windsor
1 oz EKG.

That one cost me about $13.50 and was not remotely close to Budweiser. Obviously not a SimcoeCitraMosaicNelsonDorado jolly rancher fruit-fest of an IPA. But it was a full-flavored, satisfying and refreshing Ordinary Bitter.