I see some people here and there, saying they brew up 20 litre plus batches twice a month. i know that isn’t everyone, but i’ve seen so many.
i brew to save money on good beer, so making as many brews as possible on my current equipment increases the value point of the whole operation, but i really only make about 6 to 8 five gallon batches max a year.
if i made 8 five-gallon batches that would end up with about 144 litres of beer, final result, 288 500ml bottles.
I guess I end up buying maybe 75% of that volume in beer from the store as additional beer. No one else drinks my homebrew either.
I rarely buy commercial beer to take home. I produce my own. I generally brew a 5 gal batch every 3 weeks or so which is ~30 pints (20 oz). I drink 2-3 pints some evenings. Don’t drink at all other evenings. Friends and family consume some as well.
I like to try to brew for the occasion though I miscalculate sometimes. 2x Bock as a Christmas Ale, Scottish Ale for New Years, MyBock for May, something light and refreshing for Independence Day, Brown Ale or Stout each Halloween for my Steak and Ale Chili, and so on…
I don’t think I’m saving money to brew my own but I enjoy the act of taking raw materials and transforming them into a finished product much like baking bread or pizza, charcuterie, cooking or BBQ. I enjoy drinking a good pint I made.
I brew based on demand, mostly lagers, but some select ales. But I really enjoy brewing. It probably works out to every other weekend, but when brewing for parties or special occasions, I have brewed as much as two ten gallon batches on a weekend. I like winter brewing because I can store kegs in the garage and stockpile some, but the wintertime process has to consider chilling water collection and disposal (buckets) which can be a pain.
I give away a lot of beer and my house is a hub of neighborhood gatherings - so I have no problem finding a good number of eager samplers. Some reward me with a sack of grain from time to time, which is nice, but I do it for fun.
I’m brewing at about your frequency or even a tad less per year, but I’m brewing batches that yield 6 gallons in the end. ~64-65 x 12 ounce bottles capped is the norm for me. I’m retired, and for the most part I’m the only consumer of my product, and I just don’t drink that much vs. my younger days.
^^^^^^
I could not have said it better myself. I’m a retired pipefitter who spent his career in construction. In construction, like in my brewery or in my kitchen, I find joy in taking ingredients or materials that are meaningless by themselves and assemble them in such a way that is meaningful, useful, tasty and brings happiness to others.
I spend an average of 40 hours per week in my kitchen and I brew about every 6 weeks. The only time I buy craft beer is when I’m trying to understand a particular style to help me formulate a recipe.
Regarding cost, my wife reminds me regularly that brewing does not save money over buying commercial beer. Oh well…
Perhaps we are an exception, but right now Bel Air Brewing is producing 30 gallons / month. And that is all for private consumption by the share holders in the brewery. That figure may change up or down as the summer rolls on.
As far as cost goes, one owner joked that it is only $27 per pint, factoring in equipment costs. I think he underestimated by a large margin!
I think of brewing as the equivalent to cooking from scratch. You can buy your processed meals, designer foods as well as micro brews and mass market swills.
Homebrew has the creativity to explore and the pride of presentation common to all participants.
I try to keep 3 beers on tap. No set brew schedule. Depends on guests. I’ll jump on a new interesting recipe at the drop of a hat. Next level for me will be converting a small chest freezer to a lagering vault so lagers can be year round.
Jim
I normally brew about twice a month. The beers that go fast here, like my Saison, Irish Red, ESB, and Amarillo IPA are brewed in 11 gallon batches, as well as some that I age for periods of time (R.I.S., Barleywine). Others like new trials and are 5.5 gallons.
Because of the pandemic and the stay-at-home orders, I have brewed a lot more recently and have 7 on tap (I had 8 but my Tripel kicked last night). Yeah that is a lot of beer for two people, but we also have thirsty neighbors and share with them as well. We really don’t buy much in the way of commercial beer (unless we run out of IPA, my wife’s favorite), want to try something that is new out there, or grab a crowler or two from the local brewery here to support them during the pandemic.
I brew about 12-15 batches a year, but centered around holidays and family gatherings. I brew 5 gallon batches (sometimes spit into 2.5 gallon batches). My club pours at two event annually, and I usually donate 1-2 kegs to each event. It’s probably 75/25 homebrew to commercial. I can’t get enough IPA, and I’m not going to brew/drink 5 gallons of sour myself.
I average about 50 batches @ year, normally 7 to 71/2 gallons bottled unless it’s some kind of an exbeeriment, in which case it might be as small as 2 or so gallon batches.
I brew so I can have good beer to drink, and also because I enjoy brewing, even though brew day is a major workout. At this point I have no doubt that my homebrew is much cheaper than store bought, even factoring in the cost of equipment, but I’ve brewed >7,000 bottles of beer in the past few years, it takes a while for equipment to pay for itself.
I drink my homebrew almost exclusively not so much because of the cost of commercial beer, but more because I simply prefer my beer - I can’t find anything for sale locally that is anything like what I brew and I brew to my taste preferences. Living here in BFE we don’t have a very wide selection available to buy, but even when I’ve travelled to “civilization” I haven’t found much if anything that I enjoyed as much as my own beer. I was away from home and spent 3 months in a very active craft beer community a couple years ago and it didn’t take very long before I got very homesick for my homebrew, even though the selection of commercial craft beer was vast, it really sucked not being able to have my kind of beer.
I’ll be kegging brewing my 9th (5 gallon into the keg) batch today and brewing my 10th tomorrow. I average 20 to 25 batches, or 100 to 125 gallons, per year. That’s 800 to 1.000 pints. While my wife drinks an occasional pint, as does our youngest daughter when she visits, I consume most of it myself. Even at 500 pints/year, that’s less than 3 pints/day, so not nearly as much as it sounds like. I keep telling my wife that
I’ve been brewing for around 10 years and historically would brew perhaps 4-6 batches a year. Have loved brewing, just not found the time to do it as much as I’d like - other priorities come along. Have brewed a bit more in the past year, 3 times in the past 2 weeks which is unusual, but I have more time at home with the current COVID-19 situation. I brew 5 gallon batches - enough for a corny keg. I love the process and having a goodly chunk of a day to brew is usually a joy (once in a while a frustration - absolutely perfect brew days don’t happen every time). I love to cook and see brewing similarly only with much more to learn and more variables to work with. And I love beer. Does that go without saying? I buy a lot of commercial beer because I like the variety and there are many commercial beers I really enjoy and crave. I drink the vast majority of the beer, my wife helps out, and a little gets shared with the homebrew club. And like most hobbies, brewing is a money pit - there is no savings, only more toys.
I tend to brew once a month in either 5 or 10 gallon batches. I will brew 10 gallons if I’m brewing for some gathering with family or friends and know it will go pretty quick. I give out growlers to family and friends when they like a particular batch and always try to take home brew with me to parties/events. I find I can keep a consistent 2-3 kegs around when I brew once a month. I might throw in a extra batch or two if I’m getting ready for some big event or brewing a batch for aging (Barleywine/RIS).
I agree with a lot of people. I like the process of crafting beer out of the ingredients so that is why I brew. I love experimenting and refining recipes to my particular tastes. I tend not to buy much commercial beer for consumption at home unless I’m doing BCJP training or tasting a style before I brew it. There are a couple local season favorites that I will purchase because they are so delicious but usually I would prefer to consume my home brew so I can brew again
I keep pretty detailed notes of every beer I do and enjoy improving on my own work. I’ve been brewing for almost 15 years, if you count homemade alcoholic pop much longer
A bunch of replies mentioned the belief that you aren’t saving money by homebrewing, but also mentioned making special aged and/or strong beers. I think that’s where you save the most money. Barleywines, Strong Stouts, wood aged beer, making 20 litres of that is not enormously more expensive than a 5% pale ale, but buying 20 litres of fancy beer like that at the store would kill your wallet.
Considering that, I try to make beers that are ones that are the more expensive beers at the store. It just doesn’t make much sense to make say a german pilsner, when there are so many good and cheap examples. (Yet, I still really want to make a dream german pils…) Drinking at an average bar, that some undiscerning friends is nearly out of the question now. In mid-size city Canada the beer choice is still light years behind america in terms of sophistication but has canadian prices - last beer I bought at a restaurant was 6 dollars for a 341ml bottle of domestic piss (labatt blue). It’s excruciating considering the markup.
When I used to have extremely strong enthusiasm for homebrewing a decade ago, I had a wife that just irrationally HATED it to the point where she would bug me for days after I had a brew day. So I ended up minimizing it massively. Now I’ve got other pressures minimizing my free-time, so an all-grain brew day just seems impossible to me these days. I’ve been doing partial mash extracts and timing it to about 2 hours total time including cleanup.
My setup and storage space is primitive right now, as I’ve just moved and am in a transitional stage… But I’d love to have a simple but stable dedicated cool area a half floor below basement level to just let my supply sit.
I decided to do some back of the envelope cipherin’ to determine how much I am paying for raw materials to brew my own. Discounting equipment, labor, cleaning supplies and mineral additions, I guess I could be saving money brewing my own vs buying it.
This is what my upcoming recipe raw material cost me:
Rahr 2-row 10# 12.99
Vienna 1# 1.59
C40 10 oz 1.10
hops 6 oz 15.00
water 8.5 gal 12.50
BRY-97 15 grams 4.75
Total 5/gal batch 47.93
Divided into some common packages:
Per oz .075
12 oz .90
20 oz 1.50 (my normal pint)
12 oz 6 pack 5.40
Great numbers, but they do not nearly include all costs. For example, cleaning and sanitation chemicals. They can be quite costly. And how about water? Maybe some have a well, but many brewers, (including me) do not. Plus, it takes much more than 8.5 gallons of water to brew a 5 gallon batch when one considers cleaning, flushing, sanitation, etc.
Also, recently, on this forum, there was some discussion about the cost of PBW. One of the contributors offered the formula for “Poor Mans PBW”. Well, I researched that formula and found — when ingredients were purchased at Amazon — it was actually twice the cost of 5-Star.
I guess my point is: when one considers ALL the elements that goes into brewing, it can be much more expensive than buying commercial brands. Heck, electric and natural gas can be costly not to mention propane costs. I have a natural gas hot water heater and I use propane for my boil kettle. My strike water is generated with induction, I have a pump, lighting, etc. While this hobby is very satisfying, it can also be very expensive.
