Why homebrewing is a relaxing hobby worth starting
If you've ever stood in the homebrew aisle and wondered whether making your own beer is worth the bother, the short answer is that it is, and not really for the reason people assume. The beer is good, and it's cheaper than buying it, but what actually keeps people brewing is the process itself. There's a fermenter bubbling away in the laundry, there's a smell of malt through the house on brew day, and there's a moment a few weeks later when you pour the first one and it's genuinely yours.
It makes you slow down
Brewing is one of the few hobbies that won't let you hurry. You measure, you sanitise, you wait, and then you wait some more, and none of that responds to being rushed. For anybody juggling work and family and everything else, an afternoon where the job in front of you has a clear order and a clear end is a decent kind of rest, and it's a very different feeling to sitting in front of a screen.
A kit is the easy way in, because it takes the guesswork out and it's hard to get badly wrong. The Coopers DIY Beer range is where most people start, and it's the one I'd put a first timer on.
You end up with something to show for it
Plenty of hobbies leave you with nothing but time spent. This one leaves you with two dozen bottles, and there's a particular satisfaction in watching somebody at a barbecue take a mouthful of something you made and then look at the bottle again. It's a small thing and it doesn't get old.
Once you've got a few batches behind you and you want something with more character than a standard draught, Coopers English Bitter is a good next step, because it's still a kit and it still behaves, and it tastes like you've done something deliberate.
The mistakes are part of it
You will stuff a batch up. Almost everyone does, usually by fermenting somewhere too warm or by getting impatient with the bottles, and the beer comes out tasting of banana lollies or arrives flat. That's not a sign the hobby isn't for you, it's the bit where you learn the thing that the instructions could never quite explain, and the next batch is better because of it.
The two faults worth knowing before you make them are temperature and patience. Yeast that's too warm throws off flavours that weren't meant to be there, so find the coolest steady corner of the house for the fermenter. And a beer that's been in the bottle a week isn't finished, so leave it the full couple of weeks and taste the difference.
Working out what you actually like
The real hook is that after a while you stop brewing beers and start brewing your beer. Maybe you want something crisp for a hot afternoon, or something dark for the middle of winter, and once you know which end of the malt range gives you which, you can go and make it rather than hunt for it in a bottle shop.
None of it has to be expensive or complicated to start. A kit, a fermenter, something to bottle into and somewhere steady to leave it is genuinely the whole list. Everything else is things you buy later because you want them, not things you need.
Shop related products
- Coopers Original Draught 1.7kg. The easy first kit, and hard to get wrong.
- Coopers English Bitter 1.7kg. A step up in character while still being a kit.
- Coopers Brew Enhancer 1 1kg. Better body than plain sugar.
- Coopers Dextrose 1kg. Priming sugar for bottling day.
Did you know we also stock the Coopers starter kit, 30 litre fermenter systems, a hydrometer with a test jar, bottle brushes, cappers and PET bottles in the shop. They're not on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf, or come in and we'll walk you through what you actually need.
The rest of it is in our homebrew beer supplies, and if you'd rather work out where to start before you get here, Brewhilder will talk you through it.
More from the blog
- Beer ingredients explained: malt, hops, yeast and water
- How to avoid off flavours in your homebrew beer
- Everything you need to know about fermentation and bottling
I'm still the one who checks the airlock five times a day, and I'm not sorry about it.
Candeece
