If you are a spouse or significant other of a homebrewer curious about what homebrewing beer costs, this is not the post for you. Go read A HOBBY THAT SAVES MONEY!
That post has all the information you need. This one just covers some technical details home brewers need, but that you will find extremely boring.
Really. Go read A HOBBY THAT SAVES MONEY! and forget you saw this post.
OK, Homebrewers, here are the details your spouse or significant other will find extremely boring and end up sorry that they wasted their time reading this.
(Are they gone? For sure?)
Okay, then let’s get real. A hobby that can actually save money? C’mon, who are we kidding? There’s no hobby known to mankind that saves money. Homebrewing beer is no exception.
Oh, all of those numbers in the earlier post? They are absolutely correct. You can get the production cost down below the retail cost of even the cheapest beer being sold in the market.
But, you won’t save money. I know. I’m in this hobby. So while the numbers above are accurate, and can be used to justify entry into the hobby, let’s look at what will really happen.
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Next, you will share more of your home brew than you would the craft beer you purchase. So you will go through a lot more beer than you would have otherwise.
Then, once you get started, there will be the annual cost of a subscription to Brew Your Own magazine and the membership fees for the American Homebrewers Association. There will be costs for a myriad of books. Once you read the books, you are going to want a larger kettle. An outdoor burner to heat that larger kettle. An immersion or counterflow chiller to more easily cool your wort after boiling. Coolers to serve as mash and lauter tuns to move into all grain brewing (although you will eventually move to a brew in the bag as this is easier). A grain mill to allow you to buy bulk grains. A scale for measuring grains and hops. Large storage containers for bulk grain. A refractometer to make gravity readings easier. A stir plate, magnet and flask to make yeast starters. A valve to put on your kettle to make moving beer out easier. A pump and hoses to move the beer. The parts and electronics to install recirculating infusion mash system. A small freezer to serve as a fermentation chamber for the lager beers you want to make. A temperature regulator to keep the freezer temperature steady. Glass or plastic carboys for secondary lagering purposes. A five gallon corny keg, a CO2 tank and regulator to make packaging easier. An extra refrigerator to keep the keg in. Three more kegs because it’s more fun to have four beers on tap. A manifold, hoses and beer taps to convert your extra refrigerator into kegorator. Tools to install all of these things. A pH meter to keep tabs on the pH level of your mash. A water analysis to determine the components of your brewing water. Chemicals to adjust your brewing water. More kegs so that you can have full kegs ready to replace kegs in the kegorator as they are emptied.
And that’s just my progression. There are other cool homebrew gadgets and toys available, with more and more coming out each day. You will likely get various other equipment beyond what I have.
And, finally, this was justified based on the cost savings due to replacing the craft beer you were drinking with homebrew. Except it won’t happen. You may find you buy even more craft beer, and higher on the price list, than you did before homebrewing. You will do this because you want to try various styles to see if it a beer you would like to brew. And you have to have plenty of samples to do this.
However, just looking at the raw dollars doesn’t do justice to homebrewing. Once you start, you will find a whole new community of people to relate with. Find a local homebrew club, and you will mix with people from all walks of life who share your passion for beer. Besides that improvement in quality of life, you will also have the satisfaction of knowing your creation is bringing joy and happiness to those around you. There’s nothing quite like the aroma of the boiling wort and hops wafting through your kitchen or garage.
So, even though you are very likely not going to actually save money, the joy of homebrewing is well worth the cost in the emotional health it will bring you.
Of course, you could just stick with the basic equipment and use extract kits only, and actually save money over buying craft beer and still get the emotional health benefits.
But you won’t.