Brewing Up a Pot of Savings

There's no question that home brewed beer tastes far better than commercial beers and that's reason enough for us to make it.  But can a hobby like home brewing also save you money?  Well, that depends.  If you're a beer snob who pines for super hopped-up beers with complex flavor profiles you're not going to save money making your own brew because the cost of your ingredients will be much higher than they would be for a simple ale.  Most of the people I know who make their own beer, not surprisingly, fall into this category.  Their love of complex beers is, after all, what drew them into the craft.

If you know Mary and I, it will come as no surprise to you that we got into home brewing for a different reason:  We wanted to see if it was possible to make great tasting beer and save money at the same time.  Well, I'm happy to report that it is possible IF you stick to the simple ingredient kits like Cream Ale, Dry Irish Stout, and Irish Red Ale.  We have found the best prices on these kits at Northern Brewer.

Contents of the Cream Ale Kit From Northern Brewer (from left to right): 1 oz Cluster Hopps, 1 lb of crushed specialty grains, grain bag for steeping, and 6 lbs of Pilsen Malt Extract

I'll use the American Cream Ale we made today as an example for the price breakdown:

• Cream Ale Kit                     $21.99 (Yields 5 gallons of beer or 50 to 52 bottles.)
• Yeast                                  $6.25 (Dry yeast is much cheaper but we prefer the liquid "smack pack")
• 5oz Priming Sugar               $1.25 
• 3 Gallons of Distilled Water $3.00 (Less than a buck a gallon at Target)
• 2 bags of ice                        $4.00 (because we're too cheap to buy a wort chiller)
• Shipping for kit and yeast     $4.00 (Flat rate on all shipments from Northern Brewer is $7.99 so we buy two kits at once to split the shipping cost between kits.)

TOTAL cost of 5 gallons (50 bottles) of Cream Ale  $40.49

40.49 divided by 50 bottles = 81 cents per bottle or $4.86 per six-pack.

When you consider that a six pack of decent commercial beer like, say, Guinness costs about $10.00 after all the tax we pay here in Chicago, $4.86 for a six pack of home brew is a great savings.  The beer we make costs about half the price of the beer we usually buy since we tend to buy it one six pack at a time on the weekend, not by the case at Costco.  We could buy it by the case at Costco for about the same price it costs us to make it but we don't really like the cheaper brands or the "Beers of the World" package they offer.

Of course, this does not include the start-up costs of buying all the brewing equipment.  We have probably invested about $150 to $200 in our equipment and estimate that it will have paid for itself after the sixth or seventh batch.  We just put our fifth batch in the primary bucket today.

Bottling Our Dry Irish Stout (We got 51 bottles out of this one!)

So the bottom line is: Yes, brewing your own beer can save you money provided you have simple tastes and stick to the less complex kits or recipes. We are simple folk who just like our beer to taste like beer.  We don't need (or want) it to have citrus or piney notes.  We don't need it to overwhelm our taste buds or kick us in the mouth with its hoppy bitterness.  We like Cream Ale, Irish Stout, and Irish Red and we are always on the lookout for other kits or recipes that don't cost an arm and a leg to make but have great beer flavor.

By the way, if you're wondering if it's cheaper to find out what's in a kit you like and then buy all the ingredients separately - it's not, at least not at Northern Brewer.  I priced everything in the Dry Irish Stout kit and it ended up costing $3.22 more to buy the ingredients ala carte.  So don't waste your time.  Just buy the tried and true kit.  All the kits we've done from both Brewer's Best and Northern Brewer have turned out excellent.  So give it a try.  If you can make soup, you can make beer.

Cheers!