Going to the Source to Learn HOME BREWING

Photo: Wikimedia

The time between when it first dawns on you that you could start learning to brew your own beer at home and when you actually take a stab at it is often a long one.  For one thing, it takes a pretty significant learning curve to even begin to visualize that it possible to make beer at home.  Oh, you may have heard about home breweries but to think of doing it in your own home setting is a leap of understanding that takes some time to get through.

The internet is often a source of information that we go to start learning more about a new area of life like home brewing.  Perhaps that is how you found this article and that’s good.  That means you are off on the right foot and using free information from people who have already learned a few things about brewing at home to get your orientation to what it would take for you to learn to brew your own beer at home.

As often happens with any new area of interest, if your fascination with how to brew beer at home starts to get some momentum, it’s a good way to go to log on to the major homebrewing websites and begin to get oriented to the methods, the equipment and the process of brewing beer at home.  Do be aware that some of these sites get very technical and it's easy to get intimidated.

But if you can just get an understanding about the equipment and the ingredients and some basic ideas of how the process would go if you were the one doing the brewing, that is a good start.  Because online articles and websites mix expert knowledge with newcomers orientation, if you do stumble into a section of those sites that you don’t understand, just surf on to pages that are intended to help you where you are and understand that when you get to that level that that technical sophistication, you can always come back to these pages.  Just build a good bookmark library because it will serve you well.

But to pick up speed on learning the real details of what brewing is all about, you don’t have to depend just on reading or books.  Because brewing beer in your own home is more than just book knowledge, it is handling of equipment and ingredients, the more direct exposure you can get to the brewing process, the better.  But it is also very likely that you developed your interest in home brewing while enjoying a good brew at your local brewpub.  Most towns have brewpubs where homemade beers are sold in just about every flavor, colorant texture.  Many times these brewpubs grew up out of a home brewing hobby that just got bigger and bigger until it became an enterprise and a money-making business

That is why most brewpub owners are more than happy to give tours and lessons in home brewing.  This is probably some of the most value exposure you can get to how the process of home brewing works.  By walking through a brewery where the beer you make is made, you can step through the process to get a feel for how you will proceed.  You can see the boiling pots, how the strainers are used and the filters and fertilizers and everything that is needed to take beer from raw materials to the finished state of a fine brewed beer.  In fact, with a little charm and by working for free, you may be able to apprentice in the brewpub making beer.  This time will be tremendously valuable to you to help you learn the ropes of making your own beer.

You combine this hands-on knowledge with what you are learning online and from other training sources along with what you can learn by networking with other experienced home brewers and you have a powerful source of knowledge that will pay you well when you start making your home beer yourself.  And that knowledge will result in some great tasting beers from your kitchen so you will be glad you took the time to learn all you can before taking the plunge.

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