A good introduction to home brewing...
I received the Mr. Beer kit for Xmas, and it's a good system overall. It serves as a very good introduction to home brewing, but it does have some downsides as well.
Good bits:
-The system is about as easy as it could be.
-The instructions are clear and simple.
-The fermenting tank is small (2 gallons), meaning that you don't have to wait around for a long time to taste the final product. With your more normal 5 gallon kits, you have to bottle a LOT of beer, and wait a bit longer for fermentation.
-There's dozens of mixes available on their homepage, and they offer a lot of quality products at reasonable prices. Join their club to avoid the expensive shipping charges.
Not so good bits:
-The fermenter is almost too simple. A proper airlock design would make it more foolproof as to tell when fermenting is complete, as well as avoiding contamination of the beer.
-The included mixes, while of good quality, produce a rather poor beer by...
Makes an awesome brew
So finally getting around to reviewing this thing. A quick rundown: Mr. Beer is basically a stripped down method of home brewing. While "real" home brewing is not brain surgery by any means, Mr Beer takes a lot of the legwork and time out of the equation. There is no boiling or steeping needed, no need to prepare airlocks, no need to rack the beer to a secondary fermenter, etc. Its extremely "dumbed down", for lack of a better term. But don't let that deter you!
The MAIN thing to first timers: Do NOT judge this kit by the initial creation!!!!!! I cannot stress this enough! The kit will come with a can of hopped malt extract, usually the West Coast Pale Ale or the Canadian Draft and a package of "Booster", which is basically corn sugar. These base ingredients, when used properly, will provide a PASSABLE beer. But honestly, it's just a way for you to learn how to do it. A bottle of budweiser will likely taste much better. If you persevere, go to the Mr. Beer website and...
Gotta Agree with the Others
Okay, so this cuts a bunch of corners from traditional beer brewing. That's the appeal! This makes home brewing so easy, that if true home brewers didn't turn their noses up, something would be wrong.
I'm a busy guy with two kids and a self-owned business. There's little time in my life for hobbies. Having a kit like this allows me to brew beer at home with only about 1/2 hour per session committed.
The fun part is that the ingredients are so varied that you can literally mix and match with endless combinations of flavors, bodies, alcohol contents, etc. It's not a true "just add water" system as I've heard suggested. If it were, the fun would be gone. You do have to put together a recipe (many of which are available online to get you started) and go for it.
Beer brewing for the time impaired person with other responsibilities. It's lot's of fun and the beer is darned good too.
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