No really. We were at Goodwill and they had a Mr Beer kit. I’ve heard from so many that this was their first homebrew and it was horrible. I checked and the extract has a year before the use by date, and it was only $5. I thought it would be fun to see what two experienced homebrewers get out of one of these kits. Anyone else try a Mr Beer kit lately?
My worry would be the quality of the ingredients, not necessarily the date. If the yeast packet says “Fleischman’s”, you may want to substitute something else. ;D
But hey, for $5 it will be a great experiment. Maybe you’ll be featured in the AHA Pimp My System article someday.
Not Fleischmans, but it’s just “Mr Beer 5g beer yeast” in a plain packet. http://www.mrbeer.com/product-exec/product_id/1190/nm/Dry_Ale_Yeast1 I really did think about using different yeast, but then it’s not a Mr Beer kit so what’s the point.
According to their website, the extract cans are manufactured by Coopers. I really with it wasn’t pre-hopped extract, but for Classic American Light I guess you don’t need much hop aroma anyway. That they sell pre-hopped northwest pale and IPA kits blows my mind. And let’s not even talk about the lagers.
It’ll be fun to hear if an experienced brewer can take a below average kit and produce an above average beer with it!
Someone gave me a Mr. Beer kit last Christmas. Of course I had to try brewing it. It was also the Classic American Light. I deviated from the instructions quite a bit and fermented at 64F, then dry-hopped with an ounce of Sterling. My wife loved it, so I would say it was a success.
I haven’t used it since. Anybody want a free Mr.Beer fermentor?
I started with a MrBeer kit and to this day I think the beer was damn good. But that was before coopers bought them. I tried some of thier stuff and it was not as good as the old stuff. Brew Demon sells the original MrBeer stuff now.