Home made craft beer. Not the home-brew you thought you knew.

When you say “home-brew” to most people, they think of cheaply made, poor quality beer. Cloudy, foul smelling muck, only the most desperate college student would drink. The reason that people think this is because, a lot of the time, this is exactly the case. When people decide they want to make their own beer they are often motivated by the desire for cheap alcohol. They don't see it as taking up a hobby, nor do they think there are any skills to be acquired, they just want to have some cut price booze.

Starting small, as seems sensible, our budget-minded would-be brewer looks at what is available from the local home-brew supply shop or website and tries to get the makings of a batch of beer for as little as possible. What they end up with is some basic equipment; a cheap can of hopped malt extract (also known as a beer kit) and a kilo of sugar.

The instructions on the side of the can are simple enough. Dissolve the extract and the kilo of sugar, with some hot water, in the bucket. Top it up with cold water so you end up with the whole mixture at about 20 Celsius, sprinkle the sachet of yeast on top, stir and put it somewhere warm for a couple of weeks. The beer is then bottled, left somewhere warm for a few days, maybe left to mature for as much as a week and consumed.

This is a recipe for foul, cidery, cloudy beer, with lots of off flavours. How do I know this? I know because this is exactly what I did when I first made beer.

Understandably, many people are put off by this first experience of home-brew. They drink their creation and think, “Well, you get what you pay for, I suppose” and go back to commercially brewed beer. What they don't realise is that, with a little more effort, a few extra bits of equipment and some better ingredients, a truly enjoyable, quality beer can be made in your own home, and it will still be cheaper than the cut price lager form the supermarket.

You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Quality ingredients are key.

The first thing to remember is that when it comes to beer kits, you do actually get what you pay for. That budget beer kit is not the best option if you want beer that actually tastes nice. You can get away with it if you know how to tweak it, but for your first batch a quality, high-end beer kit is the way to go.

Secondly, forget the sugar. Sugar is fine in small quantities, but it has a definite affect on the flavour and body of your beer. Experience is needed to use sugar correctly and it should never be used in the vast quantities recommended on the side of a budget beer kit.

Instead of sugar, get a can of unhopped liquid malt extract, or a kilogram of dry malt extract. This is a lot more expensive than a kilo of sugar, but the difference it makes is huge. Another option is a Beer Kit Enhancer, which is a blend of spray dried dextrose and spray dried malt extract, specifically designed to replace the sugar part of a beer kit.

If you get a top of the range 3Kg kit you don't need to worry about this at all, as no extra sugar or malt is required.

Choose your beer wisely. I would recommend against trying a lager first time out. Lagers are characterised by light, clean flavours and this requires lager yeast fermenting at a constant temperature of around 10 degrees Celsius. Most of us (myself included) do not have an area of our homes which is temperature controlled to that low a temperature.

Ale yeasts ferment happily at about 20 Celsius and are much more forgiving of temperature variations, so a few degrees cooler or warmer is OK. I just ferment at the ambient temperature in my house for most of the year.

Warning: Don't put it in the hot press! It gets far too warm in there, which will cause some really funky flavours in your beer.

If you are worried about it getting too cold, wrap a blanket around it. The yeast will generate its own heat as it ferments, so an old blanket will help it stay warm even if it is very cold. If you are going to put the fermentation vessel on a cold floor, put some cardboard, newspaper, or styrofoam under it to insulate it.

If you don't like ale, don't despair. Stout also uses ale yeast.

Also remember that ale doesn't have to be dark. If you get a lager kit and some pale malt extract or a Beer Kit Enhancer and just use a sachet of ale yeast, instead of lager yeast, you will get a very lager-like pale ale, which most lager drinkers will find more than acceptable.

Weissbier is made with a special Weissbier yeast, which, as a type of ale yeast, also ferments at warm temperatures. If you can't find a wheat beer kit, but like the taste of Weissbier, you could try fermenting a lager kit with a Weissbier yeast. This is called a Dampfbier; meaning “steam beer”. It is a refreshing, rustic Bavarian style beer.

These are just a few options when it comes to kits. There are many quality kits out there, covering many styles of beer.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask them in our forum. I or one of the other experienced brewers there will do what we can to help.

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