Is brewing your own beer cheaper than buying it

The short answer

Yes, it works out cheaper, and no, it doesn't work out cheaper on your first batch. The gear is a one off and the ingredients are the ongoing cost, so the saving only starts once the kit has paid for itself, and how fast that happens depends entirely on how often you brew.

I'm not going to put figures in here, because prices move and a post with numbers in it is wrong within a year and stays wrong. Ring us or look at the homebrew range online for what things cost today. What doesn't change is the shape of the arithmetic, and that's what this post is about.

What you buy once

The gear is the part people look at and flinch. A fermenter, a hydrometer with its test jar, an airlock, something to sanitise with, and a way of getting the beer into bottles. That's the list, and nearly all of it lasts for years.

A starter kit bundles most of that together, which is usually the cheaper way in than buying the pieces separately, and it also means you're not standing in the shop working out whether you've forgotten something, and you haven't, because that's the point of the kit.

What you buy every time

After the gear, a batch is a tin of malt extract, something fermentable to go with it, yeast, and the caps for the bottles. A standard kit batch makes about 23 litres, which is roughly 60 stubbies, and that's the number worth holding onto, because it's what makes the comparison honest. You're not comparing one bottle against one bottle. You're comparing a carton and a half against one afternoon of work.

What actually decides whether you save

• How often you brew: Gear that sits in the shed all year hasn't paid for anything. The people who save real money are the ones with a batch always on the go.
• Whether you reuse your bottles: Crown seal bottles can be washed and refilled for years, and buying new glass every batch is the quickest way to cancel the saving out.
• How many batches you lose: This is the big one and nobody costs it in. A batch that goes wrong isn't a small loss, it's 60 bottles of nothing, plus the tin and the yeast and the month you waited.
• What you were drinking before: If you were on the cheapest carton in the shop, the gap is narrower than you think. If you were buying craft, it's enormous.

So where does the money actually go

Sanitising is where the savings live, which is a dull answer and it's the true one. The single thing that turns brewing from a saving into an expensive hobby is losing batches, and nearly every lost batch comes back to something that wasn't clean. Get that right and the rest of it takes care of itself.

The other honest bit is that most people don't end up drinking cheaper. They end up drinking better for the same money, because once you can make it you start making the beer you actually like rather than the one that was on special.

Shop related products

• Coopers Original Draught 1.7kg. This tin is forgiving and it makes a sensible first batch.
• Coopers Brew Enhancer 1 1kg. This is the fermentable that goes in with the tin.
• Coopers Dextrose 1kg. This is the cheapest fermentable and it thins the body out, which is worth knowing.
• Coopers Original Lager 1.7kg. This is another easy starting tin if a lager is more your thing.

Did you know we also hold the fermenters, hydrometers, airlocks, cappers, crown seals, PET bottles and no rinse sanitiser in the shop, and none of that is on the website. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.

Where to go next

The homebrew range has the kits and the ingredients, and Brewhilder will help you work out which tin suits the beer you want.

Worth reading next: Homebrewing on a budget, what you actually need to start and Common homebrew problems and how to fix them.

I'm still the person who works out what a batch costs without counting the ones that never make it as far as a bottle, which is how most of us do this arithmetic.