Home Brew Your Own Beer

There are several different methods to brew beer at home. Most first time home brewers start by purchasing a beer kit. These kits are the easiest way to explore the beer brewing process. When you buy a kit, most of the work is already done. Your involvement with the process is pretty much limited to reading and following the instructions. Then, just wait a few weeks for the fermentation to work and you can start drinking. Brewing beer from a kit is really that easy. With less than an hour’s work and some patience you can have some really excellent beer. While beer kits will produce some very good beer, their drawback is that the recipes are prepackaged and you can’t change them. If your goal is simply to brew basic lagers and ales this is no problem.

How often do you pay any attention to the glass you drink your beer from? If you think about it at all it’s probably just to check that nothing is growing in the bottom of the glass and that there isn’t any visible dirt sticking anywhere. After all, as one who home brews their own beer, the focus is on the suds and not on the glass.

This is so wrong on so many levels! The beer glass, formally know as “beer glassware”, performs an unsung but vitally important function in how much you enjoy that tall, cold one after a long day at work. There are many, many different types of beer glassware, each with its own shape designed to be used with a specific type of beer. Here is a list of the most common types of beer glassware and the types of beer they are associated with. Utilizing the beer glass developed for the type of beer you are brewing will do wonders to enhance your drinking experience.

If you aren’t yet familiar with the process of brewing beer at home you are probably wondering just how hard it really is. After all, if it’s really involved with a bunch of mixing and boiling and all that, is it really worth the effort?

Well, those are fair questions. But, in reality, the process of making homemade beer is not all that difficult. While there are some cooking things that go on like mixing and boiling, brewing beer isn’t much different, or harder, than whipping up a batch of homemade chili or soup. And once you have done it once or twice to get the process down, you will be able to pretty much do it in your sleep.

The question of whether or not home brewing is legal comes up from time to time and may even be one you’re asking yourself for your own hobby, or it may be something
you’ve faced from friends and family members. It’s sort of sad that anytime someone wants to do something, anything, in their own home they need to think about whether or not they actually need permission from the government to do so.

The short answer is, yes, homebrewing is perfectly legal with only minor restrictions. These are designed not so much to restrict you as they are to protect you, and those around you. For example, anyone that wants to sell food products to anyone else needs to follow very strict guidelines about hygiene and the cleanliness of their food preparation facility. The person making the food may resent that, but obviously the person buying the food doesn’t! Chances are you yourself take it for granted that you can go into the grocery store or any restaurant, or buy anything edible at a convenience store, and just assume that these things are prepared in a clean and safe environment.

So, if you are thinking about homebrewing as a source of income, then there are a bunch of laws and fees you will need to deal with. Probably more than it’s worth.

If you are interested in starting your brewing career with a beer kit you may want to know how involved it will be and how much space you are going to need to devote to the project. Here is a list of what is included in a “starter” kit from a US distributor for under $100. It contains everything necessary, except the beer recipe ingredients, to successfully brew an excellent beer.