Over the years, one thing I've always
loved about the homebrewing hobby is the range of skill levels it's
open to. If you bought a Mr. Beer kit, and make a couple of gallons
every few weeks, you're a homebrewer. I f you've set a miniature
version of a commercial brewery in your garage, and make 25 gallons
of beer a week, you're a homebrewer.
Anyone at these two extremes, and
everyone in between, can make good, drinkable beer. As I've said in
my podcast, you should make the beer you want to drink. The biggest
advantage to brewing with all grain is that fact that you have
absolute control over your ingredients. There is no limit to the
variety of different types of grain you can use to develop your beer.
If that's important to you. But, you
can make really good, even world-class beer, using malt extract. You
can make good, drinkable beer using a canned kit. What you use to
make beer is determined by what you're capable of, what you can
afford, what you have space for, not what some “expert” says you
need to use.
I have also seen that homebrewers at
either end of the spectrum say bad things about brewers at the other
end. Stop it!
If you have the money and time to set
up a 25-gallon system in your garage, with a gas-jet fired brew
kettle, and a temperature-controlled fermentation tank, well, great!
If you have a salvaged 1-gallon jug tucked in the corner of you
3-room apartment, good for you!
Making beer is done by making a sweet
solution, and then adding yeast. The yeast eat the sugar, and produce
alcohol and CO2 as waste. I read an old saying years ago. It said,
“Yeast make beer. Brewers make wort.” The differences in
different brewing styles, techniques, is where we get the food for
the yeast, that's all.
Everyone, make the beer you want to
drink, enjoy your hobby. Just allow others to do the same.
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