This Beer Thing - How's It Done?

When I've told people I make my own beer, they're often interested. It's an inherently interesting idea, I think. There's something fascinating in a glass of beer - the smell, the taste, the foam and the bubbles. The allure is only amplified in that it's usually considered an "adult" beverage. The idea that one could produce it outside of some industrial process is an intriguing one.

But brewing beer is, at its core, a simple thing. You soak some grain in hot water, allow yeast to convert what is extracted into alcohol, and there's your beer. Everything else brewers talk about and do is just making the process easier, faster, more repeatable, with better results. There's a lot of lingo and a lot of equipment, but what is necessary to produce a drinkable beer? What's the least you can get away with?

A friend asked me recently how he could get into brewing and linked me to some starter kits he'd found. They usually run between $80-$120 and include the stuff you'd need to produce some 5-gallon batches of beer, minus the ingredients. But is such a big outlay necessary? Isn't there a way somebody could dip their toes in without shelling out a hundred fifty bucks before they even know if they enjoy it? I think so. I'm going to try.

I'm going to brew a gallon of beer, from start to finish. I'm going to keep the equipment as basic as I can. I'm going to use a very simple recipe and, because we're dealing with a small quantity of beer, the ingredients aren't going to cost very much. In the interest of limiting any specialized equipment I'm not going to list what you'd need to bottle the finished beer, because it's not strictly necessary. You can drink un-carbonated beer and be perfectly happy doing so. If you were to bottle this you'd need another $20-$30 worth of stuff, or a friend with said stuff.

If I were starting from zero, here's the equipment I'd need:

No. 6 Drilled Stopper
$0.85

Bubbler Air Lock
$1.10

No. 6 Solid Stopper
$0.95

Auto Siphon - 1/2" racking cane
$12.99

1/2" ID Siphon Hose - 6 feet
$3.00

1 Gallon Clear Glass Jug - 2
$7.98

Lab Thermometer
$6.99

Brewmaster Filter Bag
$5.50

Total equipment cost: $39.36
(All links are to Northern Brewer, where I order most of my brewing equip and ingredients)

I'll also need a pot large enough to boil a gallon and a half of water, but everybody with a kitchen should have one of those. And a lid for the pot. And a spoon.

As for ingredients, well, first I need to decide what I want to make. In my case, this is easy, because I already have some stuff lying around so I'll use that to test a recipe for an Extra-Special Bitter, a style of English ale. If I had to buy it:

English Maris Otter - crushed 2 lbs
$4.50

Simpsons Medium Crystal - crushed 1 lb
$2.50

Simpsons Dark Crystal - crushed 1 lb
$2.50

Briess Victory - crushed
$2.25

Fuggle Hop Pellets 1 oz.
$2.99

Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast
$1.45

Total ingredients cost: $16.19

And that should be it. I won't be using all of those grains, but they aren't sold in lesser quantities than a pound. I'll post the recipe when I actually get to brewing it. This should produce a golden-brown beer of about 6.5% alcohol with a malty, bready quality and balanced hop aroma, bitterness, and flavor. That's what I'm going for, anyway. I thought about doing this with malt extract instead of starting from grains. That would be simpler, but I'd be stuck with whatever grains the extract maker included in it instead of choosing all my own. It's really not that hard to do all-grain anyway, and especially in a batch this small all you need is a big pot of water.

So, for a little over 50 bucks we can try this out and see how it goes. Actually, if you're like most people with a kitchen, you probably already have a candy thermometer, which reduces the cost by $7. If it turns out you hate brewing, you're only stuck with about $25 worth of equipment you'll never use again. Not too bad.