Purpose of Brewing
I have brewed continuously ever since then. I have a few recipes that I keep brewing most of the time with a bit of alteration occasionally. My purpose of brewing is to keep beer around the house to drink. I brew to have some fun with friends. I also brew for parties to have more income. What about you? What is your purpose of brewing?
I brew for a few reasons.
- I enjoy a good beer, and having some around that I made gives me a sense of pride when it tastes great. It's also nice to have a steady supply of good beer at the press of a button!
- Secondly, it's a fun hobby to me. There's nothing quite like getting a couple friends together with food & drinks and making an afternoon of it!
- Thirdly, there is a large sense of pride when I brew, and someone who really knows their beer tells me how much they enjoy it. Unbeatable.
- The saving of money, combined with making a beer exactly how I like it...all-in-all, it's well worth the time!
- The ladies love it...seriously! I always get a comment like "Oh, neat!", or something to that effect. They just don't realize how easy extract brewing really is!
It is the hobby I have chosen, & I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Why home brew?
Its a great hobby. Beer is cheaper. You get to learn something that you can always improve on, always get better at. And, best of all, you can share your hobby easily with others.
I think it's kind of therapeutic too, like cooking for some people.
Ha!!! I think its simple for me I love to brew beer because I love good beer. I love to drink beer so to be able to have it on hand is great for me.
That's a good enough reason for me. 
It's a fun hobby and the perfect hobby for a gadget junkie like myself! You can brew beer that you actually like. For me, many commercial beers are an acquired taste.
You've all nailed it for me...yes I take pride when my friends say what a great beer it is....yes, I enjoy having top quality beer on hand at all times, and yes it's a great hobby-I even get to spend quality time with the wife when she helps be brew up a batch...
But, here's something else....it's also allowed me to explore other hobby aspects: since I started brewing I've learned how to weld (wanted a portable brewing cart), I learned how to braze (needed to build a manifold for my mash tun...learned how invaluable a "turkey fryer" is to a brewing...etc.
Nothing compares to home brewing....
I was looking for a hobby when I saw a fermenter at a Buddie's house.
I came home and looked homebrewing up online.
Since I love a good beer and like to cook I thought this would be the perfect hobby.
In Ohio winters are mostly cold, you have to have something to do in doors.
Brewing provides me with an indoor activity.
Plus it's something you can do with your buddies.
I began homebrewing a little over a year ago while living in Portland, Oregon. The local microbrews were so amazing that my husband and I really got into beer. We want to drink mostly organic beer ... it was pretty easy to find in Portland (less so here in San Diego), but we still wanted a larger variety. That desire got us interested in homebrewing, and after our first batch I was hooked! He is less thrilled about the actual process, so I've sort of taken it over as my personal hobby, but he always enjoys the results.
We are also concerned with our overall energy usage -- which extends to what we buy. We try to limit our consumption of items produced in far-away places and then shipped to wherever we are. We still buy brews from other states and countries every once in awhile, but try to focus on local production. Local brews are important to us, but the fact that we can produce our own beer is even more empowering. I think there is something comforting and thrilling about drinking something you made in your own kitchen.
As someone else mentioned, it is very relaxing for me just like cooking and baking are. It's a form of stress relief from start to finish. I like to experiment and make brews for a certain person, as a form of celebration (like when my niece was born), or by using ingredients that reflect a specific location (Cascadia, Nantucket, etc.)
I'm always looking for hobbies that are relaxing yet productive. Hubby and have been mostly wine drinkers, but a year or so ago we opted for a change when we visited the beer selection of our favorite liquor department. Not a BMC in sight... so we tried a few brews and were hooked since then.
Although we don't drink much beer (maybe a few bottles each a week) when I learned about homebrewing I just had to try it. I love the balance of art and science in home brewing. It's a lot like soap making, which started out as a hobby but is now more of a "household chore" because we don't buy soap anymore and I HAVE to keep the stock up. Making soap requires following protocols VERY closely in order to avoid personal injury during the creation process (lye is involved) and to make sure the end product is safe to use. For me, brewing beer requires a similar attention to details but the chemistry involved doesn't seem as critical as it is in soap making. And I don't have to wear rubber gloves and protective eyewear
Reasons for people brewing are as varied as personalities.
I live in the Portland metro area. I always had easy access to great microbrews, so I never really gave it much thought, even when another homebrewer recommended it about 10 years ago. Portland has somewhere around 40 breweries, more than any other city in the country, possibly world. So it comes as no surprise that Portland is the microbrew capitol.
I spent some time in Chicago and Norfolk, and finding microbrews were pretty damn hard. Finding a brewery was just about impossible.
While in Virginia, I found a homebrew shop and decided to visit him. It never dawned on me how cheap it was to make beer. He said 50 cents a glass. Was that really possible?
It only took me one batch to know this was my new found hobby. I'm not a cook, don't like to, but there's just something about making beer. The smell of boiling wort, knowing how to read beer profiles, making exactly what I want, and making it CHEAP! I had some people over recently to learn brewing, and they were amazed to learn someone can brew GOOD beer for next to nothing. Instead of shelling out 3.75 for a glass of hefeweizen, I make it for about 40 cents.
I love to drink beer, love a good microbrew, and love saving money. It was a natural move for me. My absolute biggest motivator was to save money.
Now I see 18 year olds brewing beer and wonder why I didn't think of it back in high school.
Purpose of brewing? Is this a trick question? Perhaps a rhetorical question...no matter, I shall answer it anyway. My love of beer didn't manifest itself until I was an older lad at the age of twenty eight years or so. Before this time in my life the consumption of alcohol served a very specific purpose, to become inebriated. As time went on, I realized that this beverage hid a plethora of wonderful flavors and an immeasurable depth of complexity. Now, at a worldly age of 34, my love of beer has driven me to explore the realm of homebrewing. I'm one step closer to godliness.
I have always wanted to brew, i never really new why... but i wanted it really bad. haha However i never really started brewing until my mom and I flew out to Arizona to see my aunt and visit Mexico. She let me base my whole trip around different micro-breweries and that was my deciding factor. I drove out to a brew store the day we got back and spent ever bit of b-day money and cash i already had on everything i needed!
I have a passion for beer. I've wanted a homebrew kit for quite a few years now, but for some reason never bought one. This year my wife suprised me with one and now I am hooked. (why did it take me so long?) I just tasted my first beer and I have to say that aside from my childs birth there is no better feeling than drinking your first beer you brewed yourself.
I think my wife created a monster! haha.
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