First, welcome to my blog.  Thanks for visiting!

I like beer.  Let me expound.  I like good beer.  I like craft beer.  I like homebrews.  I like microbrews.  I love touring a brewery, soaking in all the smelly goodness of malt and hops and barley. I love adding a new pint glass to my collection.

I didn’t always like beer.  My family drinks one of the mega-market mass production beers.  I used to.  Now I politely drink one if offered, but I usually don’t take a second.  Does that make me a beer-snob? Perhaps.  That’s okay with me.  If I’m gonna drink beer I’d prefer it be good.

I purchase about three 6-packs a month (moderation counts, people!).  But at $8-$9 per 6-pack that adds up.  I can’t spend $25 a month on beer anymore.  So rather than continuing with that spending rate I have decided to drop a bunch of cash upfront and hope to save money over the long haul by becoming a home brewer!

So much potential…

So after dropping about $140 I am almost ready to go.  I still want to pick up a turkey fryer so I can boil the wort in the garage.  My wife will likely appreciate that.  And then the brewing can begin.

Doing a little math I have determined that my breakeven point, financially, will come after about 5 batches of beer.  Each batch can produce 48 beers (eight 6-packs).  So 5 batches would be forty 6-packs.  If I were paying full price of $8.50 for forty 6-packs my cost would be $340.  Since a brewing kit costs $200 (fryer included) and the beer materials cost about $25 each that means 5 batches will cost $325.  Therefore after brewing 5 batches I can call it quits and still have come out ahead.

Okay, so that assumes that I can get the bottles for free.  It also assumes that I don’t cave in and have special labels printed.  Either way, I am joining a fun group of people who have chosen to brew their own beer.  This will be interesting.