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Do you consider MrBeer home brewing?
Mr Beer! My wife and daughter bought me one for Father's Day last year, because I told them I'd like to learn to brew my own beer. It started the bug for me. First batch....GREAT! In fact one of my buds who's an all grain brewer, told me I had the touch and helped me finish that first batch off. Second batch was a Pilsner using Mr Beer canned extract and again another Great tasting beer. By my 3rd batch, I had bought the Home Brew Bible and started experimenting with flavors and made a Honey Bock. Just last month, I went to my LHBS and bought my ingrediants for a New Castle Nut Brown Ale clone. While I was there, I told the shop owner that I had a Mr. Beer kit almost apologizing for having him figure out my grains for a 2.5 gal batch as opposed to a 5 gal batch. He told me not to apologize, that Mr Beer was essentially a single stage fermentor that looked like a keg instead of a bucket...Big Freaking Deal! If the beer tastes good then who cares what you make it in! I'm still going to move up to buckets soon, but only because I want to brew larger batches, not because I'm displeased with the way my Mr. Beer works! Long story short, YES Mr Beer is home brewing, and don't let anyone tell you any different, and like the owner of my LHBS told me, don't appologize for using one, if it tastes good and you're happy with it, the rest of the world can take a flying leap. Cheers!
CAmbrose
Another Mr Beer starter here. My buddy who I had given a Mr Beer kit to for a wedding party gift had given it back to me to start brewing. He had moved onto mash - extract brewing. I did a couple of Mr Beer kits and then got a little bored of the dumping a can into boiling water when I did an extract brew with that same friend. I liked the Mr Beer kit when I first started brewing, but then "graduated" to other things. It did get me started brewing so I cant complain about the kits.
I think it might be an easy way to see if you like making your own beer. I've never used it.
But I think once you do make your own you'll find you won't be able to make it fast enough with Mr Beer as far as quanity, and you'll end up upgrading to a higher end method to make more at once.
DC
I started with Mr. Beer to ive read a few of the comments on this subject but i think i have the reason and solution. I have looked through the accessories section of Mr. beer and I noticed that there is a spigot for what they call their old model of keg. I noticed that many of the negative comments about Mr. beer were around the 2006 or earlier time zone. I have seen very few 2007 or later remarks about the kits being bad. I think there may have been in earlier kit and in this kit there was a model of keg that apparently wasn't there best. And now it seems that they have worked out the kinks and they have a pretty good product. Now obviously something that takes more time like brewing beer from scratch as opposed to the cans that Mr. beer sends is obviously got a better taste. I have not been doing this that long but with all the opinions that I've seen I think I see now that this is very much a "how I person is taught" kind of thing. Because we can really get straight answers from homebrew stores because most, and I see that loosely because some brew store owners are not all about business, but most especially these days need the money and will sell you even things you don't really need. But of course again each person depending on how they were taught will have different opinions about what they actually need. A good analogy I think is to compare Mr. beer to McDonald's or some kind of fast food. Because it's quick and simple and uses basic ready-made ingredients. Obviously these are mass produced. And obviously they're not the best quality. But obviously it is still food just like Mr. beer is still beer. Now why some people look down on Mr. beer I don't know why, I mean to me that's like looking down on someone that eats at McDonald's. I think Mr. beer is a great starting off point for anybody it makes quality beer, and it's quick. Most of what I learned is from Mr. beer and other brewers who started with Mr. beer. Now again an obvious fact is that when you graduate from one school you go into another school. So when someone is comfortable with making beer with Mr. beer they move on to what everybody else does with 5 gallon batches. Another great reason to get a Mr. beer is that if you want to experiment with different flavors or recipes than you could brew up a batch with Mr. beer and see if you like a raspberry flavored beer or a strawberry flavored beer. Or whatever you're trying. Another thing that Mr. beer kegs are great for is if you want to try different yeasts you could take a couple Mr. beer containers and fill them up each with half of a 5 gallon batch of beer and try different yeasts and see what the results are. I suppose you could do this with 2 gallon buckets but if you already the have the Mr. beer kegs I don't see any reason why not use them especially if you graduated.
my vote is Mr. beer is a great starting point for those that want to take care and knowledge of beer making further. And it's a great place for those who don't want to spend a whole bunch of time cooking and cleaning. And they don't really need a big stockpile of beer.
I actually must correct myself, the New Version of Mr. beer is a great product, I can't say the same for the old version that many people apparently have had a bad experience with.
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