Brew it or buy it?

I started out as a cook and am now a baker. Homebrewing taught me more about how to deal with yeast than my baking class and years of making pizza/naan dough ever did.

 

But as you alluded to in your post it could be very dependent on where you live in the US. Not everyone lives in areas with a well curated selection of beers.

Cheers!

 

True dat.
I can say that at the local Safeway in my old hood there was a very decent selection of west coast micros. Maybe in the middle of, say, South Dakota you would be more limited.

 

And West Virginia, and...

Cheers!

 

Never had any interest in brewing until I got diagnosed with Celiac's. Now I brew all the gluten free beer I drink. I love everything about it from creating recipes to obsessing over my pH and fermentation temps. Great hobby!

 

I've figured out my limits with brewing. If there's a great NEIPA, I'm buying commercial because I can't make it. Same with high ABV barrel aged stuff -- more than likely stouts. I can't match their quality with my small apartment, bottling, BIAB, 2 gallon setup.

For everything else, it's cheaper and more satisfying to do it myself. The LHBS operator had a lot of comments about my using too much wheat in a Tripel or Nelson in my saisons. Got a little obnoxious so I finally said, "I can get Saison Dupont or Tripel Karmeliet any time I want. I'd rather cook up a variation." Then, he got it.

 

All of the above.

This is a hobby for most of us. We love the process, the passion, the education (I'm a knowledge for knowledge's sake kind of guy), the mystique, the camaraderie (brew club is a social club like no other), and the beer! I haven't kept track, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that four of my personal top five most mind blowing beers were homebrewed. I look forward to the sharing sessions after the club meetings where I get to taste a dozen or more one-offs, and the competitions I've judged have given me the opportunity to taste some true gems. You can't buy this stuff at the corner store anywhere. It's nice when one of my beers gets those kind of accolades (yes, I've brewed a few).

All due respect, the fact that you're asking this question suggests that this hobby may simply not be for you. Nothing wrong with that. It's an investment in time, money, and emotion that might be better spent on other things that interest you.

I would draw an analogy to music. With all the wonderful music available via streaming services, concerts, and elsewhere, much of it free, why go to the trouble of learning to play the guitar? Yeah, it's like that.

 

Is it possible to brew the heavily fruited smoothie beers at home like stuff from Mortalis and Answer and Imprint? I don't know if they require any special or expensive equipment yield their ultra thick beers

 

I've heard of these but don't know anything about them. Could be difficult to package but someone more knowledgeable should chime in.

 

Entirely possible. I'd guess that if your going for that milkshake/smoothie thing, though, you'd have to really know about grist profile, mash temps, and other stuff on the pre-boil end. Boil is probably a bit shorter than normal.

From what I understand of these beers, there's no such thing as too much fruit. You'd probably need to chemically cut off fermentation and then force carbonate, though.

I could be wrong. I don't especially like this style of beer, as I tend to enjoy beer that tastes somewhat like beer. But that is my understanding of how folks make this type of beer.

 

Thanks. I just looked how to stop fermentation, so you learned me. Double thanks.

I've never tried them, but I'm with you. I think I enjoy pastry stouts (depends if Chocolate Rain qualifies), I've had ones that are too close to cake or icing and they're past my limit of tasting like beer.

 

Great question. I started brewing in the early 1990s when there was barely any beer on the shelf that was both good and affordable. Good beer was essentially Sam Adams (SABL and stock ale), SNPA, and Guiness. At first, I brewed to find variety that wasn't available in stores. Soon, I found that brewing gave me a much better understanding of the commercial beers that I was drinking. If you want to get a good sense of how to identify and compare various malts, hops and styles in commercial beers then homebrewing is a good way to start.

When I started kegging beer, I liked having greater control over portions. I could have 3 oz. of beer with lunch or a full pint at dinner. I didn't have to (feel obligated to) drink 12oz. or 24oz. of beer if I didn't want to.

Nowadays, I brew (and drink) much less and ask myself the same question that you asked in your original post. With so much good beer only a short drive away, why homebrew? It's mostly to ensure that I always have good beer on hand. Sometimes it is to scratch the itch of making something myself.

 

If you are in it for the long haul and also like to brew styles that are not readily found fresh by retailers then home brewing is the way to go.

I mentioned the long haul because equipment costs are spread out over time. Most of my equipment is 15 years or more old, so over the years equipment costs are pretty minuscule for me.

I mostly brew classic English, German, and Belgian beer styles. The first two categories are hard to find fresh, and the third category is much more expensive to purchase retail versus my expenditures on the homebrew level.

I buy grains and hops in bulk and reuse my yeast. Doing some rough math my average pint of beer costs around $0.25, factoring in ingredients and propane usage, not my time or equipment cost.

I will also add that a lot of this has to do with your personality. I grow a lot of the vegetables my family consumes and raise a lot of the meat we consume as well. Cooking is as much a hobby for me as home brewing. There is something cathartic about going through the process when you are in control of what you eat and drink and have a mastery of the process.

 

I have been brewing a long time. The reason I brew has changed over the years. When I started it was because I wanted to understand the beers I was buying better. By brewing you get to know why different beers taste the way they do. Then my reasons morphed into brewing beer that matched my palate better. I like SNPA, but maybe I wanted it to be a little more grapefruit and less pine. Brewing allows you to dial in something directly to your palate. At some point I really started to really geek out on the numbers and make the best beer I can.

Currently though I brew for variety. The marketplace (at least in my area) is just so dominated by 7%+ABV Hazy IPAs. I like many of these beers. I like steak too, but I don't eat a steak every day... for breakfast, lunch, dinner, desert, midnight snack, as trail mix, as...
Anyway. Where else are you going to get an Amber ale, Brown ale, a Dunkel or a Porter without squash, brownies and kumquats in it?

Homebrewers sort of built craft beer. Homebrewers are certainly the only ones keeping the different styles alive.

Just my opinions.

 

I buy very little beer for home consumption. I've got the homebrew cost down to less than .50c a pint. I do go out to drink in beer bars I think I'm doing my part. There are some great beers available today, there also is some very mediocre ones.

 

The beer I brew and have on tap started out as clones of some retail beers that I really liked. My multiple attempts at cloning kept getting better and better each iteration (different ingredients). AS they became "award winning" imo I just called them my own of that certain style. Plus, each time you brew, you learn something that you want to try next.