Are you crazy!?
To start, I hope not! Just passionate about home brewing and sharing it with other people.
I started brewing about ten years ago. I had had my home brewing 'Starter Kit' sitting in my basement for over a year. My brothers and best friends had given it to me as a stag gift at my bachelors' party. There it sat. It was not until my younger brother had brought homebrewed beer for Christmas that was not awful when I thought, "if he can do it, so can I."
I started brewing about ten years ago. I had had my home brewing 'Starter Kit' sitting in my basement for over a year. My brothers and best friends had given it to me as a stag gift at my bachelors' party. There it sat. It was not until my younger brother had brought homebrewed beer for Christmas that was not awful when I thought, "if he can do it, so can I."
My twin brother had brewed beer with a MR. BEER brew kit years earlier and we politely drank it, but it was terrible. We didn't have the vocabulary at the time to define why it was terrible, but it was horrendous. I think it was supposed to be a pale ale, but it was so 'phenolic' that it more closely resembled the Mt. Dew bottles that he had bottled and served it in.
I opened my starter kit and found very quickly that it was not a starter kit at all, but a Rube-Goldberg contraption, missing half of the pieces. Luckily one of my good friends was just exiting the hobby and lent me his brew kettle and immersion chiller. Had I needed to go buy those, I may have stopped there without ever brewing beer. Combined that first capital infusion, before ever brewing a batch, would have cost me over $100.00. Keep in mind, I was gifted the actual 'starter kit'.
This is the seed of Brew Day, planted back in 2010. I just happened to luck into the equipment.
Fast forward to 2020 and many batches of beer, countless hours spent researching and reading everything I could get my hands on as it related to home brewing. I am always having a similar conversation with my friends, co-workers, and occasionally strangers about home brewing - more importantly, why they have not tried home brewing themselves. The same 3-4 barriers to entry crop up.
It is too expensive.
What if I make a bad batch of beer?
I don't have room to store that equipment. (This is usually after they have seen my accumulation of gadgets and gear.)
I wouldn't know where to start.
What if I make a bad batch of beer?
I don't have room to store that equipment. (This is usually after they have seen my accumulation of gadgets and gear.)
I wouldn't know where to start.
The expense is relative. I often justified purchasing a new piece of equipment that would speed up my brew days because it would allow me to brew more often. Also, when calculating the cost of the equipment, I rarely ever considered amortizing it into the cost of the beer that I was making. Partly due to fear of my wife doing the calculation and cutting off my hobby at the knees and partly because I never considered the beer as part of the hobby. It was the outcome of the hobby, but I drew the most enjoyment from the equipment and more the process and the experience of brewing. I am one of those strange people who enjoyed the cleaning of the equipment, the setup, the actual act of brewing more than I ever enjoyed the beer. That being said my attention to detail on cleaning and sanitation allowed me to create a beer that rivaled store-purchased beers and wowed my friends. At this point people started encouraging me to open a brewery or make beer for them... (This is not legal as a homebrewer and we at Brew Day do not condone commissioned brewing and/or profiting from distilled beverages without a license.) Instead, I would offer to bring my equipment to them and have them brew beer and/or come over and brew with me. The timing never really seemed to work out although, most people jumped at the idea, competing schedules never seemed to align. I would encourage them to look at a starter kit from some of the online or local homebrew stores. This was often met with disbelief as they started to tally the investment they would need to start home brewing without knowing if they would like it or be any good at it.
This brings us to point two, what-ifs. I always assured them that I would help them if they ever wanted to get started. This never did much to alleviate their concerns about making bad beer. Maybe I had raised the bar too high for them to step over it. More likely it was just another roadblock. This brings in the idea of eliminating most of that possibility. What if we took out all the guesswork? What would happen if we created a way for them to all but guarantee to be successful. Everyone liked that idea, but still, they would need the equipment, etc...
Enter the Brew Day Experience™
How did you start homebrewing? Have you long wanted to try your hand, but had a roadblock? Call us. Text us. Message us. We want to get you brewing.