So anyone home brew?

[scottyb]

I do.

Helped a buddy brew 2 bbl of pale ale this past weekend.

Wot you got?

 

[scottyb]

 

[scott43]

I used to do home brew in a carboy...but it sucked. Became fruity sometimes or crappy dark ale. I just decided to drop bills on good stuff from people, unlike me, who knew what they were doing!!

 

[Posaune]

I belonged to a group that brewed together. It was a lot of fun, but we gave up after we figured that it cost about the same to buy the stuff in bulk (keg, carboy, etc.) than to brew it ourselves. We just wanted beer, we found.

 

[Blue Streak]

I buy a case of O’Dell’s IPA, dump it into a five gallon bucket, and impress my friends.
Works great!

 

[François Pugh]

I used to, nothing fancy, just used the cans of wort, hops and brewers sugar you can buy at a brew store, but I got tired of the yeast in the bottom of the bottles. Then I tried one of those U-brew places that supposedly allowed filtration to remove the yeast. After a couple of weeks my beer had tiny specs of yeast in it. Apparently I was supposed to drink 40 litres of beer in a week.

My favorite recipe was an Australia Real Ale, exactly as indicated on the can of wort but made with 1/3 less water.

 

[Coach13]

A former neighbor of mine brewed out of his basement/garage for years and made great beer. He continued to expand and brew different beers and now has started a successful and popular brewery in Loudoun County Va just north of Leesburg called Barnhouse Brewery.

 

[ADKmel]

Tried it, it was fun but found out we were drinkers not brewers, trying to wait the 4-6wks for the beer to 'age' didn't work well. One potent batch we had to take people's keys away it if you had 1 you were tanked.. we did the jalapeno pepper beer too.. came home to beer all over.. hot peppers increase fermentation..

 

[Dwight]

Thought about it, but with so many good micros around me, not worth it. Plus that is money I could use in the ski and wood workshops.

 

[scottyb]

Well, at least you folks are drinkers.

We brewers like that.

 

[Big J]

My wife and I have been home brewers for a long time. We do lagers, ales, meads. We are now looking to do some specialty wines such as Ice wines. We are also BJCP (Beer Judging Certification Program) judges. We often judge competitions. Yes, you can buy good beer for a good price. Costco can be a very good place to purchase cases and they have a rotating variety. What we like is that we can custom make what we we want. We barrel age etc. We brew the beers we like that cost much more to buy than to brew. I have two chest freezers on digital temperature controllers with 7 live kegs at the moment. One of them is a Biere d' Garde that is over 5years old. I have only ruined one batch of beer when I was new at brewing. I did not take apart and clean the bottling bucket tap so the whole batch was contaminated. From start to finish you can be drinking a nice IPA in less than two weeks.

 

[Coach13]

I don’t brew but I love beer. One nice thing about Loudoun County Virginia, in addition to many successful wineries, is there has been several great breweries pop up, many of which grew out of folks who home brewed for years . Within a rock throw away from my house is Vanish Brewery which has been crazy successful. There are also several others just a short drive away that brew great beer.

 

[scottyb]

Between Tysons corner and western Loudon Co. is the largest micro brewery growth area in the USA for the last couple years.

 

[Coach13]

Between Tysons corner and western Loudon Co. is the largest micro brewery growth area in the USA for the last couple years.

I didn’t know that but I believe it. There has been more than a dozen pop up over just the last couple years in Loudoun.

 

[scottyb]

 

[Carolinacub]

Between Tysons corner and western Loudon Co. is the largest micro brewery growth area in the USA for the last couple years.

Not sure if I believe that. Asheville NC has the most breweries per capita in the US

 

[SpikeDog]

I homebrewed for about 10 years, then like a lot of previous posters, got out of it. I'd make the occasional bad brew, mostly good ones, but wasn't really saving that much money. I dabbled in wine and mead too. I still have the gear, but it's so much easier to hit the store or take a growler to the local brewery. I like canned brewski when I'm camping (portable, don't need a bottle opener, and crushes flat), and you don't want to shake up a homebrew much or it'll resuspend the yeast at the bottom.

 

[Posaune]

Asheville NC has the most breweries per capita in the US

According to Forbes, Portland, Maine has the most breweries per capita in the country. Asheville and Boulder, Co are tied for second.

 

[Carolinacub]

Well I was close.....I'll take second

 

[Jerez]

For those that do home brew, check out the Smarty Pints You Tube videos for tips and advice. (Full discloser, I am related to one of the guys)