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My new hobby..... Homebrewing!

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releasedtruth:
Well, I've been enjoying my arcade for nearly 6 months now and I built a prime custom on the first try so I don't have a huge need for another, but I needed a new hobby and I brewed my first Amber Ale yesterday evening and it's fermenting in my arcade room of all places. It's good to bring hobbies together I say. Anyone else a brewer?? About May 29th I'll be drinkin and playin some serious arcade action, all crafted with my own 2 hands!

Arrrgh mateys!

-GT

danny_galaga:


with all the boozers on here, im surprised no ones has replied to this thread yet! drew? bones? boss7?

releasedtruth:
The guys I brew with do about as complicated a process as you can (all grain no sparge), but they max at about 45 bucks for 50 bottles. We make all our specialty equipment so it's real reasonable. Cost me about 195 to make my first batch and I don't need to buy anything else for a while. Got an immersion chiller, 3 carboys, hydrometer, amber kit, thermometers, caps, airlocks, etc. Some of the stuff I got used cause people ditch the hobby, which is nice for me.

Can't wait to taste it! If you guys lived nearby we could game and drink it up come end of May. I need to come up with a special MAME brew, any ideas?

KenToad:
Cool, nice to see another brewer on here.  I've been brewing for three years now.  Brewing goes right along with arcade cabinet building, IMO.  I'm still dreaming of getting a kegerator pedestal for my bartop and having two taps off the side.  One day ...

Regarding cost, after you get the equipment, it's really only as expensive as the ingredients you purchase, i.e. depending upon how elaborate of a beer you want to make.  I paid 25 dollars for my last batch of ingredients for a Sam Smith Nut Brown clone, which is a pretty simple beer.  That makes 50 and a couple 12 ounce bottles or one five gallon keg.  You also have to factor in the fact that, with rare exception, the finished product is ten times better than your average cheaply produced American Macrobrew, which can't even be sold in Europe, Britain and other beer appreciating places because it's so polluted which sugars derived from corn and rice, not to mention artificial flavors.  Bud, Coors and Miller basically make a diluted whiskey or vodka and use a tiny bit of real hops and a generous helping of "natural" flavors to get it to taste something like a lush's morning breath.

Regarding shelf life, a 3-5% Alc. by volume pale beer will generally achieve peak flavor at around 6 months and some people will say that it will develop some aftertaste after a year of storage.  Stronger and/or darker beers will peak later, but I've known people to store just about any type of beer for several years and still say it tasted fine.  I've never kept a beer for that long.  And I've never thrown one out.  We have regular homebrew competitions around here, so I know that it is possible to make a beer that is full-flavored and not particularly good.  It just never happened to me.   :)

Releasedtruth, I highly recommend the recipe book, Beer Captured.  It's a great place for clones of amazing commercial beers (check out the recipe for Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot Barleywine  :o ) and also a good way to learn how to make various styles of beer.  I'm in Ohio, by the way.  Where are you?

KenToad:
Yeah, at least they're trying.   :P  But they will never use 100% real ingredients as long as the law doesn't require them to label with ingredients or just use real stuff, since real ingredients need to be fresh and are way more expensive, so their bottom line would suffer.  Partially, it's not their fault.  At least as I understand the situation, alcohol is very heavily taxed in the US.  In Germany, you can get a half liter of beer from the supermarket for .40 Euro cents.  And that's for a real beer.  That's also due to more competition in Germany, but I think we will never see that kind of price here, with the system of taxation being as it is. 

But, they are starting to feel the pinch that Sierra Nevada and the other popular craft breweries are putting on them. 

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